


Letting Yourself Grieve

by aurria



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Death, Dealing With Loss, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional pain, I'm sorry for this, Langst, M/M, Panic Attacks, Rating May Change, Smut, background hunay, background shallura - Freeform, established relationship - klance, lance is bad at dealing with loss, tw for dealing with death, tw for funerals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2018-10-26 21:23:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10795017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurria/pseuds/aurria
Summary: After the sudden passing of his mother, Lance returns home to take over the funeral arrangements to keep himself busy so he doesn't have to deal with it emotionally, ultimately suppressing the emotions until they come crashing down around him.In his attempts to keep his deeply mourning family afloat through the grieving process, he remembers all the times his mother helped him, including probably the biggest, most meaningful way ever - helping him be with the person he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.





	1. Going Home

It was the little things that would always catch him by surprise. The special spoon they used for scooping cookie dough out of the bowl that was left on the counter top by the refrigerator. The mug drying upside down in the rack under the window by the sink or the spice cabinet door not closed all the way so it hung open just far enough to let the myriad of smells out. Sometimes it would just be the pair of shoes by the door that were no longer going to be pulled on in haste to get out the door to that appointment that didn’t even matter anymore. They were always in a rush. Why were they always in a rush? They had time, why were they always running?

This wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

They weren’t supposed to be grieving.

They were supposed to be running around laughing and having a good time. But that’s what happens when death comes knocking too early. And death was never kind in who it chose.

Lance took a deep breath and steadied himself. He could do this. For them. He’d be the strong one, the one to shoulder this responsibility when they couldn’t. He couldn’t let himself fall apart. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Dropping his duffel bag to the floor and slipping off his shoes as he looked down the corridor of his home, the pale yellow paint rubbed down in some spots, places where they’d drug their bags or bumped into it a little too roughly, Lance ran a hand down his face with a sigh, squeezing his eyes closed tightly.

Funeral preparations were going to be a long and tedious affair, but they had to be perfect. Music had to be chosen, flowers picked, displays organized. Pictures had to be sent to be printed; little pamphlets had to be designed. Hell, he had to figure out what to even write in it. How do you condense someone’s entire life down into a small paragraph? How do you convey in just a couple sentences everything that person had meant to you?

Oh god, he had to pick the casket.

Lance could feel the panic attack building up - the rock that settled in his gut, the boa constrictor that was wrapping around his lungs, the vice that was pressing on the his temples. Without slipping his shoes on he walked back out the door letting it slam behind him. He stared out into the empty driveway that was sure to fill up in the coming days. The sun was already beginning to set. His breath was getting short and he could feel his hands beginning to shake.

“For fuck’s sake, Lance, get it together,” he angrily whispered to himself.

The door opened behind him and his breath caught in his throat.

“Lance?” he heard his younger sister’s voice call.

Plastering a small, fake, but convincing nonetheless, smile on his face he turned around to address her.

“Maria, hey, I was just about to come in but the sunset was just too pretty not to watch,” he explained, trying to will his voice to be even.

He could see the concern flash on her face briefly before the tears welled up again and she rushed to him with her arms open.

“Oh, Lance,” she whispered as her voice shook with emotion and wrapped him in a hug.

“Hey now hermanita, don’t go crying on me just yet,” he whispered into her hair and he wrapped his arms around her tight. He surprised himself with how calm his voice sounded and how unrestricted his breathing seemed. Panic attack averted it seemed. For now anyway.

Maria sniffled and shook in his arms as Lance rubbed his hand up and down her back soothingly.

“We should go inside. The others are probably worrying about us,” Lance said quietly.

His sister nodded slightly, tightening her arms briefly before letting go to grab his hand. Using her other hand she wiped it under her eyes in a futile effort to get rid of the tears.

Lance smiled softly, his eyebrows turning up slightly.

“We’ll get through this, all of us, together,” she said, turning back to the door and pulling him inside.

Lance let his smile fall, an emotionless expression replacing it.

Upon entering the house again he could hear the sounds of voices from deeper in the house and the smell of food cooking in the kitchen.

He pulled his hand out of Maria’s grip. She paused in her step to look at him, opening her mouth to speak before Lance cut her off.

“I’m just going to run up to the bathroom to clean up. You know, just spent 6 hours on a plane and all,” he quipped, pulling slightly at the shirt he was wearing with a grimace.

Maria stared at him for a moment, her brows pulling together before she nodded.

“I’ll let papá and Isaac know you’ll be down in a few minutes,” she said with another nod and headed towards the back of the house where the kitchen was located.

Lance watched her retreating form and waited for her voice to add to the others in the kitchen before picking his bag back up and tossing it over his shoulder. With another deep breath he headed to his left and up the stairs.

His steps were heavy on the fraying carpet that covered the wooden stairs. How many times had he and his siblings slid down this on their blankets? He was vaguely aware of his phone buzzing against his thigh but his eyes followed the photos that lined stairway. He paused in front on the picture just before the second floor landing. They had taken it just a few months prior at Christmas.

His phone was buzzing again. He ignored it. Again.

His eyes focused on his reflection in the glass of the picture. He looked tired, the blue of his eyes dull. The bags under his eyes were prominent, looking foreign against his tanned skin, obscuring some of his freckles. In all honesty, it kind of looked like he’d been punched in the face. But that’s how it felt, really. Punched in the face, the stomach, had his feet swiped out from under him. He felt his lower lip tremble a little before he clenched his teeth and frowned. No time for this now. Keep moving.

He took the last step on to the landing and took the first door on the right. The bathroom wasn’t large by any means, how he, his brothers, and his sisters had managed to share this bathroom for so long was pretty amazing. But now it was just the two youngest left in the house. Lance and his two older brothers and older sister had already moved out into their own lives.

His oldest brother, Emilio, was 30. He’d married his high school sweetheart, Amanda, right after graduating. They had two little girls now, Alejandra, who would be 10 soon, and Isabella, who had just turned 4 a week ago.

Gabriel, who was turning 29 in just four days, had finished grad school just last year for his Ph.D. in medical science. He was going to develop medicines to cure diseases, he’d claimed. He probably had it in him too.

Lance sighed and closed the bathroom door behind him, leaning his back into it with his face in his hands.

His sister, Ana, just two years his senior, at 26, ran a small vintage shop in town. Her boyfriend of three years, correction – fiancé of 6 months, Aaron, had proposed at Christmas. They were looking for houses in the neighborhood.

Lance briefly wondered if they’d found one yet.

Peeling his shirt off and dropping it unceremoniously onto the pale green rug on the floor that covered the slightly discolored carpeting of the bathroom, Lance dug through his bag. Pulling out his deodorant, a new shirt, and a comb, he leaned over the sink. Turning the sink on he could hear the pipes rattle a bit before the water sputtered out. Cupping his hands and splashing the water onto his face and up into his hair he thought about his two younger siblings.

Isaac had graduated high school a year ago and, as far as Lance knew, still hadn’t decided what he was going to do. His father though, had put him straight to work in the family business - a small, but respectable, reality company, as the stand in for their receptionist after the last one had quit to start a family.

Maria, his sweet Maria, just turned 17 at the start of the New Year, still had one more year of high school to go. At Christmas she had said she was going to go to the local community college to get all her GED classes out of the way before transferring to Cornell in New York to get her degree in veterinary medicine.

His phone buzzed in his pocket again as he stared at his reflection in the mirror. The water dripped from the ends of his hair that hung just above his eyes. He mentally put ‘get a haircut’ on his list of things to do this week before the funeral. Was a week even long enough to get everything done? Probably not, but it didn’t matter. A week was all he had. He’d have to get it done.

Looking down again he grabbed the white hand towel that sat on the counter next to him and ran it over his head just enough to stop the dripping. He straightened up and pulled his clean light blue t-shirt on over his head, lifting the hem on either side just enough to put some fresh deodorant on. He ran the comb through his hair just enough to tame the damp mess before gathering his things and stepping back out into the hallway.

Turning towards the end of the hallway Lance found himself staring at the door to his parent’s room. His fist clenched around the strap of his bag and he sucked in a breath. The art he’d made when he was 6 still hung in the center. It was a crude drawing of his family at the time. Their house in the background, his family all lined up, before Maria was born, their dog Maximus next to the stick figure depicting him.

Keep moving, don’t stop moving, he repeated in his mind and pushed toward the door opposite the bathroom. The air in his old bedroom was a little stale when he entered. No one had been in there since Christmas when he’d come home. The pale blue of his walls was a welcoming comfort. The NASA poster on the wall just inside the door was a little faded from time, but it was still hanging on the wall in one piece. His ceiling was a dark navy blue; glow in the dark stars stuck up there showing the constellations you could see from his window at night. A small mobile of the solar system he’d made when he was 9 hung in front of his window, twisting slightly now that the door had been opened and air movement let in. 

His bed was still a mess from when he and Keith had slept there over Christmas. Lance bit his lip and his eyes lingered on the bed. What he wouldn’t give to have Keith there with him now. But he was halfway around the world with Shiro visiting their parents who had decided to move back to Japan after spending most of their adult lives in the States; something about missing the familiarity of Japan and missing family – something that Lance understood and appreciated. Going to grad school for astrophysics at Stanford meant he was pretty much a world away from the rest of his family in Miami.

Sighing as he threw his bag onto the bed, he smacked his cheeks roughly before turning to head back downstairs.

“Get it together, McClain,” he mumbled.

It was time to join his family, be their crutch, their support, the glue that held them together, the one strong enough to hold fast and get them through this.

He hesitated at the bottom of the stairs as his phone buzzed just once more. Pulling it out of his pocket to check it, he has 12 missed calls from his friends, 3 voicemails from Keith, and 17 unanswered text messages from friends and family. Deciding to deal with it later, he slid his phone back into his pocket and walked down the hall into the kitchen.

Six hands wrapped around him tightly. Maria’s around his waist from behind, Isaac just next to her but under his arms, and his father’s from the front, one arm around his shoulders, the other on the back of his head pulling him into his neck.

Lance’s hands immediately wrapped around his father’s back and held him tight. He could feel his family's tears dampening his shirt, but his own wouldn’t fall.

He had to be strong. His mamá wouldn't have wanted him to cry. Her Lancito was born to bring light and happiness to people. And he’d be damned if he couldn’t do that for her. Especially now that she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is my first fan fic in like 12 years, so I'm sorry if this reads stuffy or anything. Gotta ease myself back into this whole thing. I apologize for any errors, this is not beta read. Thanks for reading!


	2. No Sleep for the Weary

To say it had been a long day would be a definite understatement. By the time Lance had finished returning the messages he’d missed from family and arranging flights for his grandparents and other family members it had been well after midnight. He was currently lying in bed staring at the fading glow of the stars on his ceiling.

Sleep wasn’t coming to him.

His eyes burned and his body ached, but it wouldn’t shut down. It couldn’t shut down. Lists were running over and over in his head, things that needed to be done kept being added, some things erased only to be added back again.

His room seemed void of any form of energy. Just staying there seemed to drain him more and more, and yet sleep eluded him all the same.

Rolling onto his side he stared at the wall across from him where his desk sat. There were a few old books stacked on floor to the side. A box of photos sat on top, the lid lifted slightly. Once he’d finally gotten everyone else to go to bed he’d planned to start going trough them, picking out the best ones – the ones that represented everything his mother was to them. But as he’d started lifting the lid the tightness in his chest began again and he’d opted to do it in the morning.

With a sigh, Lance sat up and scratched at his bare chest before dropping his hand back down to the bed. He was wasting time just lying there. If he wasn’t going to sleep then he needed to work. To keep moving forward. Five days was an insane timeline to get everything done, but he’d do it. He’d make his mamá proud.

His phone on the nightstand vibrated repeatedly, the screen lighting up with a picture of his face squished against Keith’s, a brilliant smile on both their faces, the name reading “the bae <3” under the picture. Reaching blindly for it he hit the call receive button and held it up to his ear without speaking.

“I thought you’d be awake,’ Keith’s voice came through the speaker, soft and soothing in Lance’s ear.

Lance grunted softly in response, eyes unfocused, looking past the picture box on his desk, through the wall, into nothing.

“I know it’s late for you, babe,” Keith began again, realizing he wasn’t going to get any real words from his boyfriend at the moment, “but I just wanted you to know that Shiro, Allura, and I will be there on Wednesday. There weren’t any tickets available for this evening or tomorrow morning so we can’t leave until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”

Lance hummed in response, not even bothering to process the information.

“Hunk called me earlier this afternoon, said you weren’t answering his messages,” Keith continued, “he, uh, he said the earliest he, Shay, and Pidge could get out there would be late Friday night. Shay has to finalize the flower preparations for a wedding client or something… and Hunk and Pidge have to finish up a report for the robotics division at the company they’re interning for before they could leave…”

He vaguely registered Keith trailing off.

“Lance,” Keith called sharply, causing Lance to jump.

“Yeah, I-I’m here,” he responded, his voice rough from disuse, eyes refocusing on the box on his desk.

“Babe, I know this hard, I understand,” Keith’s voice had taken on a slight pleading tone, “but I need you to know it’s alright to ask for help, you don’t have to shoulder all of this by yourself. I know you don’t care about what everyone else is doing at the moment, that it’s not helping you complete what needs to be done, but until I can be there with you, until I can physically help you, this is all I can do. And right now, what I need you to do for me is try to get some sleep.”

Lance huffed a humorless laugh, “I’m not sure I can do that...”

“When was the last time you slept?” Keith asked softly.

There was the sound of a chair squeaking on the floor in the background, a click of shoes on wooden floors, and then the soft click of a door shutting.

Lance was quiet for a moment. When was the last time he’d slept? He had gotten the call about his mother’s sudden passing Saturday afternoon, so he hadn’t slept since Friday night. Glancing at the glowing letters of the clock on his nightstand it was now four-thirty Monday morning.

“A day,” Lance lied, hoping his voice wouldn’t betray him and hoping his boyfriend, who’d always seen through his lies and never shied from giving him shit for it, would give him a break given the circumstances.

There was a hesitation on the other end of the phone and then a deep sigh rang through the receiver.

“Lance…”

He sighed, “Alright fine.” He ran a hand through his hair before rubbing the bridge of his nose and adding, “I haven’t slept since I found out. It’s been almost three days now, I guess.”

He heard another sigh and could picture the crease that would be forming between Keith’s eyebrows. His mouth quirked slightly in amusement before falling flat again.

“I’ll see if there’s a flight I can bump someone from in the morning,” was Keith’s response. “I’ll push for them to let me on, push for a family emergency pass or something.”

“No, Keith, I’ll be fine. Just, just keep the original tickets you guys got… whenever you… said that was,” Lance hesitated in his reply realizing that yes, he’d heard him say it, but he really hadn’t been listening.

“Wednesday, we’ll be there Wednesday.”

Lance could hear the pained exasperation in his reply and he frowned at himself. Here he was, already disappointing people he cared for because he couldn’t pull himself together to get this done.

“Right, Wednesday,” Lance repeated.

“Well,” Keith started, “I guess, I guess I should let you go, to try and get some sleep.”

“…yeah,” Lance sighed into the phone, both of them knowing full well that it wasn’t going happen.

“You know,” Keith said, a bit of a playful tone rising in his voice, “if I find out you haven’t slept by the time I get there I’ll kick your ass back to California.”

A small, real laugh passed out of Lance’s mouth, “yeah, yeah I’m sure you will.”

“I love you.”

Lance’s eyes dropped to the hand resting in his lap. “I love you too, Keith.”

“We’ll be there before you know it, babe. But I’m serious about you getting some sleep. Goodnight.”

“G’night babe,” Lance replied and waited for the beeping that signaled the end of call before putting his phone back down on the nightstand.

Taking another deep breath and exhaling slowly he pushed himself up off the bed and towards his desk. Sitting down on the hard metal chair with a plop he pulled the lid off the box. It was completely full. He’d asked Ana to gather them up after he’d found out. After he told them all on the phone that he’d take care of all the plans; that all they had to do was get the food ready.

The pictures on the top were all recent, the top most being the same photo that now hung at the top of the stairs. They were all there, Emilio and Amanda, Alejandra and Isabella sitting on their laps, bright eyes with brighter smiles. Gabe reluctantly squished between Emilio and Ana, who was sitting next to Aaron. Isaac and Maria laughing while they poked each other in the ribs. He and Keith were on the floor in front of his mom and dad; his mamá’s hand resting on his head while he smiled at Keith, fingers intertwined with his and resting against his heart. His dad's hand was resting in his mom's, fingers intertwined. It was happy. They had been happy. It was hard to realize that this was just six months ago.

The next picture was from what looked like their family harvest bonfire party. Lance hadn’t been able to make it home last year for it; he’d had a midterm and a research paper due. Again, smiling faces. Sorrow didn’t have any place in this family.

Digging down a ways into the box he found a picture of himself, maybe when he was 17 or 18. He was dressed in his high school warm-ups. His hair was wet so it was taken after his swim meet, a silver medal hung around his neck. His mamá was pressing a kiss to his cheek as the smile on his face looked like it would have hurt it was so big. His cheeks were flushed, his hair a mess from getting ruffled by his siblings, but again, no sadness present.

Lance really couldn’t remember a time when anyone was really sad in his house. He remembered when his dog had died, but he couldn’t remember any lingering sadness in his house at all.

Grabbing another, farther down again, he found one of his family at the hospital, all gathered either around or on the bed where his mother sat with a baby in her arms, Maria. God she’d been a cute baby – pudgy cheeks, a head full of hair, deep blue eyes.

As he continued rifling through the box of photos he found himself reminiscing. A sad smile found its way to his face as he flipped through picture after picture, remembering when they were taken. Pictures of them at the beach, Disneyworld, the trip they all took one winter to see the snow.

There was a knock on his bedroom door. Frowning, he glanced over at his clock. Six-fifty-five.

“It’s not locked, you can come in,” Lance called.

The door creaked slightly as it opened and Emilio walked in, still in his police uniform.

“Heeeey,” Lance called, forcing a smile onto his face. “You’re here pretty early. We weren’t expecting you guys until lunch time.”

“Yeah, I just got off my shift at the station,” Emilio replied. “Amanda and the girls will be here around then though.”

Lance swallowed the lump that had lodged itself in his throat.

“How are the girls doing?” he asked.

“Aly’s had a rough go so far, you know she was with mamá when it, uh, when it happened,” Emilio said softly, running a hand back and forth under his nose. “Izzy isn’t quite sure what’s going on. She just knows everyone is really sad and that she can’t see her abuela even if she keeps asking to.”

Lance nodded, dropping his gaze from his brother’s face to the floor.

“Amanda’s doing her best to hold the girls together. She’s taken a couple days off work to help with everything, you know, anything you need her help with,” the older man went on to add.

Raising his eyes back to his brother Lance shook his head and waved a dismissive hand, adding a slightly forced chuckle. “Nah, she’s got her hands full with the girls. I’ve got this under control. Like I said on the phone, the rest of you just have to get the food done – I’ve got the rest.”

“But you know you don’t have to do all of this by yourself, right? Lance, you have to let yourself gri-” Emilio started.

“Don’t,” Lance cut him off, voice sharp, his face serious. “Just let me do this. Please.”

Emilio sighed. “Alright, but we’re here too if you change your mind.”

When Lance didn’t respond with anything but a tense gaze and a slightly furrowed brow at his brother, Emilio turned to leave the room. “I’m going to start breakfast for everyone, any special requests?”

“Pancakes,” Lance responded instantly.

He saw the small smile appear on his brother’s face.

“Mamá’s special recipe?” Emilio quipped.

“Nothin’ less would do,” Lance replied.

Emilio nodded and closed the door behind him.

Releasing a deep breath, Lance turned back to the photos on the desk and picked up the photo from Christmas. It had all of them and they were happy. It would do. He also grabbed the portrait he’d found of his mamá, this was the one he was going to use by her casket. She’d looked radiant and beautiful the day they’d convinced her she needed a fancy photo, which had then devolved into all of them getting the super fancy portraits. They’d ended up putting them all in silly frames on the mantel above the fireplace. His own picture had ended up in a blue sparkly frame with a little dolphin jumping over the corner. He briefly thought he’d have to convince Keith to get one too.

He set the photos next to his wallet and phone before heading to the bathroom.

Stepping into the shower helped ease some of the weariness of his body, but he was still so tired. He scrubbed his hair and face on autopilot, letting the water course over his body, his mind blank, taking a moment to just not think.

A brief knock on the door pulled him back into reality.

“Breakfast is ready when you are,” Isaac’s groggy voice called through the door. He’d probably just woken up from the sounds of it.

“Yeah, I’ll be right down,” Lance replied followed by a quiet, but full body sigh as he turned the water off and reached for the towel on the rack.

Coffee, he was going to need coffee today.

Pulling his pajamas back on for the time being, he headed downstairs with the towel draped around his shoulders to catch the water that dripped slowly off the ends of his hair that curled up slightly.

He could smell the aroma of his mamá’s pancakes before he even reached the kitchen, breath catching slightly as he walked through the archway.

Their kitchen wasn’t big, but it was the heart of their home. They’d planned on surprising their mamá for Christmas this year with a remodel, planning on knocking down the wall between the kitchen and formal dining room they never used. Lance smiled a little as he tried to imagine his mamá dancing around while she cooked, singing along softly with whatever was playing on the radio. The new kitchen would have been perfect for her.

“Morning,” he greeted, ruffling Maria’s hair as he reached around her for a plate full of pancakes.

She swatted at his hand, but it lacked any of the playful retorts that normally accompanied the gesture. Glancing out the corner of his eye he could see Maria’s eyes were puffy and still ringed with red irritation from crying. He looked over at Isaac, eyes also puffy and shiny as he was stuffing pancakes into his mouth in what looked like an attempt to not cry.

“Where did Emilio go? I thought he’d stay through breakfast since he made it,” Lance asked.

“Amanda called,” his father replied from over by the coffee maker. “Aly was having a really bad morning.”

He placed a cup of coffee in front of Lance. “Drink up; you’ll probably need the energy.”

Lance nodded, picking up the mug and taking a big gulp. Cinnamon, his mamá loved cinnamon, put it in almost everything as her special ingredient. Lance had never quite figured out how she’d manage to make everything better with the spice; he’d even tried replicating some of her recipes at school but they had never worked out, they’d tasted alright overall, but they never quite met up with his mamá’s cooking.

“Thanks,” Lance said after swallowing. "I’ll be running by the funeral home today to pick out the casket and the flower shop to pick out the flowers. I’ll be back this afternoon to work on the pamphlet before going to the printer tomorrow to get them done as well as printing larger versions of the pictures I found for the displays.”

There was a shuddering inhale of breath that came from Maria before she excused herself by pushing away her plate and heading back upstairs.

He watched her go before turning back to his father. “Uhm…” he mumbled, furrowing his brow trying to remember his train of thought. “Wednesday I’ll finalize all the stuff with the church so we can send out the time for the funeral on Saturday. Thursday I’ll pick all the music for the funeral and the reception afterwards. Abuelo and abuela will be here on Friday, I’ll pick them up from the airport when they get here. I’ve already set up hotel reservations for them and the rest of the family that’s coming down.”

Lance could tell he was just talking to talk, that they didn’t really need to know all the specifics since he’d told them he was going to deal with all of this, but he was never good with the quiet. So he talked to fill the silence.

His father put a hand on his shoulder and nodded. “We can pick everyone up from the airport and get them to their hotels, you don’t have to do everything,” he offered.

Lance just shook his head. “No, I want to do it.”

His father sighed and went to refill his own coffee cup. 

“When will Keith be getting here?” his asked over his should as he stirred a dash of cinnamon into his cup.

“Wednesday,” Lance responded. “Shiro and Allura too, they’re all flying in from Japan. I don’t know when they’ll land just yet. Keith will let me know though.”

“And Hunk and Pidge?” his father continued.

“They’ll be here Friday night,” Lance said, finishing his plate of pancakes and downing the rest of his coffee. “Hunk’s bringing Shay too; you’ll finally get to meet his fiancé.”

“I look forward to it, but it’s a shame it won’t be under better circumstances,” his father replied.

Lance hummed in response, staring at his father’s broad back. He’d yet to turn back around and Lance could see the tremor in his shoulders and the shake in his hands.

Isaac pushed back from the small island in the kitchen with a squeak of the stool legs. Lance jumped slightly, he’d forgotten his little brother was still there, and turned to him.

“I’m going to go check on Maria,” he said simply, stacking his plate on the one Maria had left behind and trudged out of the kitchen.

“I’m going to go get ready,” Lance said softly after a few moments of silence that followed his brother's exit.

His father didn’t respond as he walked out of the kitchen after putting everyone’s dishes in the sink.

As he got to the top of the stairs he could hear the broken sobbing coming from Maria’s room, her door cracked open just a bit. Lance walked over, dropping the towel that had been around his neck by the bathroom door, and pushed through her door. She and Isaac were sitting against the wall on her bed. Isaac had his arms wrapped around Maria as she sobbed with her face in her hands.

Isaac looked up at him with tears streaking down his face, silently pleading for help for them both, but mainly for Maria.

Lance climbed up on the bed and pulled Maria into a hug. Her hands gripped the front of his sleep shirt as she sobbed into his chest. Isaac moved to the other side of Lance, pulling his legs up and burying his face in his arms as he leaned into Lance.

“Shh, shhh,” Lance cooed at them. ‘We’ll get through this, we’ll be alright.”

He said the words with empty confidence. Placating phrases, things to be said when people were sad about something. Empty words, empty promises. Lance didn’t know if they would ever be alright without her here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's chapter two! As you can probably tell by this chapter that's it's going to be a long week for Lance and his family, and this fic is probably going to move very slowly. It's going to get worse for Lance especially before it gets better.
> 
> Again this is not beta read, so I apologize for any typos. I'll try to fix any I find.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	3. Such a Lovely Rest

Lance stared at the funeral home sign from the inside of the car. As he been doing for the last thirty minutes. His knuckles were white from grasping the steering wheel in quiet desperation. The snake wrapping around his ribs was back, his breaths short. He could feel the sweat forming on his hair line. The leather of the steering wheel squeaked as he twisted his hands.

Being here made her death real instead of just some bad dream he couldn’t seem to wake up from.

He was late getting started on all the things he needed to do today. Consoling Maria and Isaac took a while, not that he minded, they’d needed him. But it was now eleven-thirty. And he was still stalling. His mamá had always complained that he procrastinated. He’d tried to get better about it in college, but he still had his tendencies to fall back into it. But here he was prolonging what needed to be done.

His ringtone startled him out of his panic. Hunk’s face was on the screen. He grabbed it out of the cup holder and answered.

“Hey buddy,” he said, forcing cheerfulness. He wasn’t sure why he felt he had to prove to everyone that he was fine, but he did it anyway.

“Jesus, finally Lance,” Hunk responded.

Lance flinched, yeah, he probably should have returned his calls and texts earlier.

“Sorry Hunk,” was all he offered in reply.

“I’m just glad you answered this time. How are you?” Hunk asked.

Lance knew he didn’t really have to convince his friends that he was fine. They knew the truth anyway; they knew how close he was with his mother, how much he turned to her whenever he was down. But he couldn’t be sad now, he had work to do.

“I’m… good,” was all Lance could force out.

“I’m unconvinced, but I’m going to let it go because I know you,” Hunk told him. “And though I’d really like to call you out on your bullshit at the moment, I’m going to let that go too. But dude, it’s going to catch up with you, just know that.”

“Hunk, you never beat around the bush do you?” Lance asked; voice unusually flat for talking with his best friend.

“We’ve been friends for a long time Lance; we passed the stage where we try to appease one another with flowery words.”

“And yet…” Lance interrupted dryly.

“You’re my bro, I’m not going to hold back,” Hunk continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted.

“And I love you for that, but at the moment you’re keeping me from things I need to get done,” Lance said, “so was there any particular reason as to why you called?”

He needed to get stuff done. He’d already wasted enough time on his own.

“Yeah, actually. Keith called me back. He’s worried about you; he’s worried you won’t try to sleep. He asked me to try to convince you to at least take a nap.”

Lance sighed. Keith was a lot of things, impulsive and passionate to name just a few, but he wasn’t generally this pushy about things unless he was incredibly worried. Guilt settled into the pit of his stomach, though he knew that was the last thing Keith probably wanted him to feel.

“Well, consider your job complete. I will do my best to take a nap,” Lance replied curtly, he needed to get off the phone.

He didn’t want to think about whether or not he needed to sleep, he had too much to do.

“Today,” was Hunk’s response.

“What?”

“Today, you have to try to take a nap today.”

Lance furrowed his brow in annoyance. “Huuunnnnk…” he dragged out in an annoyed whine.

“Oh no you don’t, you don’t get to ‘Huunnnk’ me. You’re the one that has your boyfriend all worried about you to the point where he’s calling me because he’s worried you won’t listen to him. Lance, I love you like family, and I’ve put up with a lot of crazy shit over the years-” Hunk replied.

“That we’ve both contributed to,” Lance interjected flatly.

“You’re not wrong,” Hunk agreed, but continued, “and as official best friend, I’m telling you to please listen to your boyfriend. I’ve seen him when he’s mad, bro, it’s scary. And it’s even scarier when he gets in that weird mood where he’s mad and hyper worried over something that the one person he’s madly in love with is doing, or in this case not doing.”

Lance ran his hand through his hair, scratching at his scalp.

“Alright,” he agreed, “I’ll try to take a nap today.”

“You promise?” Hunk asked.

“Yeah, buddy, I promise,” Lance answered.

“Good,” Hunk said. “Now I really have to go because I’m late for my internship and I think Pidge might kill me before our boss does.”

“Goodbye Hunk.”

“’Bye Lance,” Hunk echoed and hung up.

Staring down at his phone screen as it darkened, Lance noticed that the tightness in his chest was letting up again. Distract, redirect, and keep moving forward, he repeated in his mind. He opened the car door and walked into the funeral home.

The room with all the casket types on display was rather dimly lit in Lance’s opinion for the kind of decisions that needed to be made. The air seemed stale as his eyes darted around the room. Did these places need to be so unnecessarily dreary? Having not been immediately bombarded by whoever was in charge here, Lance eased his way around to look at the various casket options.

The relief talking with Hunk had afforded him seemed short lived as the tightness in his chest began again. Clenching his fist he forced himself to take deep, measured breaths as he continued walking around. As his eyes slid over the various options he couldn’t help his mind wandering back to his birthday last September.

***

“Mijo!” his mother had called from the kitchen.

Lance turned from his path following behind Keith out the door to the backyard. He waved Keith on out to the fire pit where the rest of his family was finalizing dinner preparations. He strolled back into the kitchen.

“Yeah mamá?”

“Mijo,” she cooed at him, cupping his cheek with her hand. “When are you going to propose to Keith?”

“Mamá!” Lance hissed, tossing a hand over her mouth and looking over his shoulder to make sure Keith hadn’t come back inside; a blush rising from his neck to cover his entire face.

Her laugh trickled out from behind his hand as she ducked around it. Her laugh was contagious and Lance found himself laughing with her, pulling her into a hug.

“How did you know I was planning on asking him?” he questioned.

“Oh please, I’m your mamá,” she replied as if that explained everything.

And it did. God, it did. She knew what he was going to do before he even knew himself.

“I was planning on asking after graduation. He’s got a trip planned with Shiro to visit their parents in Japan. I was going to ask him after he got back,” Lance answered.

“Good. We should start getting the plans and arrangements ready,” she said, patting his cheek again before grabbing a dish off the island in the kitchen. “Grab those plates and the plastic forks.”

Grabbing the items as instructed he followed her.

“I don’t know if he’s going to say yes, mamá. Maybe we should wait with the planning. I mean, I don’t even have a ring picked out for him yet. And like, I'm not even asking for like eight months anyway,” Lance babbled.

“Nonsense mijo, of course he’ll say yes.”

“How do you know?” Lance asked as they paused at the backdoor.

Keith was sitting in one of the chairs set up around the fire pit in a full body laugh with his brothers and sisters. His father looked to be in some sort of animated rant, his hands waving around the barbeque utensils.

“I just do, Lancito. I just do,” was her response before she stepped through the door.

Keith looked over and their eyes locked. A brilliant smile spread across his face as he stood up and walked over to Lance.

“What’s got you smiling so big?” he asked Lance, taking the forks from his hands.

Lance hadn’t even noticed he was smiling; it was just a natural reaction whenever he saw Keith.

“You,” he replied and pressed a kiss to Keith’s cheek.

Color filled Keith’s cheeks as he wrapped his free arm around Lance’s waist.

 

***

“Sir?” a voice pulled him back from his memories.

His vision was blurry and he blinked a few times to clear away the tears that were filling his eyes.

“Oh man, sorry about that,” Lance said after clearing his throat.

The attendant shook his head with a smile on his face.

“Was there anything I could help you with today, sir?” he asked, face open and friendly.

Lance’s eyebrows twitched slightly.

“Yeah, uhm… I-” Lance started, but his breath caught in his throat again. Clearing it for a second time he continued, “I need a casket for my mother. Uh… she, uh… sh-she passed away a couple days ago, the funeral is this Saturday.”

The attendant nodded his head solemnly.

“Of course, we can accommodate that with no issue. What type of casket were you looking to get?” he asked, turning to grab some pamphlets from the counter behind him.

Lance could feel the pressure building on his temples as tried to force his heartbeat to slow down and his breathing to be even.

“It’s… it’s not going to be open casket,” Lance replied, “so, it doesn’t need to have the separate sections that open?”

He hadn’t meant it to be a question, but he honestly didn’t know if that was really a thing. All of his experience attending funerals had been as a child so he had obviously been unconcerned with the semantics of the affair.

“We have a few that have a single lid, they’re right over here,” the man said, turning around and walking to the other side of the room.

Lance followed him taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. And that’s when he saw it: the pearl white casket with the antique silver accents on the corners. His mamá loved pearls; she was always wearing the necklace his father had bought her.

“That one,” Lance said, pointed directly to the pearl casket before the attendant could even begin his commentary on the differences. “That’s the one.”

The man smiled warmly at Lance.

“Then let’s go to the desk and we can fill out all the necessary information,” he said.

By the time Lance had finished all the paperwork and arrangements for Saturday, including transportation from the church to the cemetery, it was two in the afternoon and he felt more drained of energy than he thought he had ever been before. The aching in his body was back, the sting in his eyes, but the headache was new, and it was pounding.

Sliding back into the seat of his father’s car he made the decision that it was probably time to take Keith and Hunk’s advice and go take a nap before going to the flower shop. So he drove home.

When he got there, there was an extra car that he didn’t recognize parked on the street in front of his house. A puzzled expression settled on to his face as he got out of the car after parking in the driveway. He couldn’t figure out who in his family would be here this soon. Gabriel wasn’t due for another day and that definitely was not Ana’s car. He frowned; this would throw off his schedule. Whoever had shown up early would need a hotel room on short notice.

After opening the door he was hit by a familiar scent and an even more familiar sight. Keith’s black combat boots sat next to the doorway and he was standing just inside the kitchen archway, his back to the door, as he spoke to Lance’s father.

Lance’s chest tightened as he felt his eyes prickle. He kicked off his shoes and made a bee line straight for Keith.

He could tell he had knocked the air out Keith when he’d collided with his back, wrapping his arms tightly around him, breathing in his scent while he buried his face in Keith’s hair.

Keith’s hands rose to rest on Lance’s arms that crossed around his shoulders.

“What happened to Wednesday?” was all Lance could ask, hoping that with his voice muffled by Keith’s hair that no one would hear the tremor in his words.

“Managed to catch an earlier flight. Someone cancelled their ticket,” Keith replied, fingers rubbing soothingly on Lance’s arms.

Lance’s father excused himself to another room and Keith turned in Lance’s arms and wrapped his own arms around his boyfriend. Lance just pulled him closer, eyes scrunched closed.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Or tell Hunk to tell me, he called earlier,” Lance asked, his voice growing soft.

“After I’d called him, I kept calling the airport to see if I could get a flight. They put me on a wait list, there wasn’t any guarantee that I’d get a ticket, and then when I finally did get that ticket,” Keith explained, “calling was the last thing on my mind. I just needed to get to you.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Lance whispered.

“Have you slept yet?” Keith asked.

Lance shook his head slightly from its position in the crook of Keith’s neck.

“It’s why I’m home right now, though I still have more things I have to do today. If… if I don’t get it done I’ll be behind,” Lance rambled, trying to quell the emotions threatening to spill over.

“Then let’s get to it,” Keith replied, pulling away from Lance and taking his hand.

Keith led Lance up the stairs and into his room where he pulled his shirt off and shucked his pants onto the floor after setting his phone on the nightstand. Lance followed suit and they both climbed into the bed. Lance rolled onto his side so he was facing Keith, staring at his face, taking in the fact that he was actually here.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Lance said again.

“Shh,” Keith cooed, cupping Lance’s face and kissing him gently, first on the forehead, then the cheek, and then his lips. “Go to sleep, I’ll still be here when you wake up and then we can finish your list for today.”

Lance could feel sleep pulling him down, blinking repeatedly he tried to keep his eyes on Keith’s face, to make sure this wasn’t some sort of hallucination caused by sleep deprivation. Eventually though, he did fall asleep, and into a dreamless one at that.

While he slept, Keith reached for his phone. He needed to text everyone; let them know he was here.

After receiving acknowledgement message from everyone, he settled down under the blanket he’d draped over them. His eyes roamed over Lance’s face, taking in the deep, dark bags below his face, the dry patches of skin, and the overall lack of the usual brightness his skin usually held.

Keith knew very well what it was like to lose a family member, how hard it was to deal with. He had tried to bottle up the emotions at the time, keep himself closed off from everyone else. If he pushed it away it would just disappear. But that’s not how grief worked. You couldn’t push it away and hope for the best. You had to confront it; you had to deal with it. You had to let yourself be sad.

In the years that Keith had known Lance, both before and after he began dating him, Lance never had a problem expressing whatever emotion he felt at any given time. But this, this wasn’t healthy. He knew Lance wasn’t letting himself deal with his mother’s passing. Instead choosing to deal with arrangements and everyone else’s grief instead of his own emotions.

Keith remembered when his carefully crafted walls had shattered after the funeral of his biological parents. It was messy and almost as traumatic as the initial loss. If Shiro hadn’t been there to pick up his pieces he’s not sure he’d be lying in bed with Lance at this moment. The therapy and subsequent adoption into Shiro’s family had helped immensely in teaching him how to healthily cope with things though it had still been a long process before Keith got the hang of it. And it had involved a lot of crying on his part. Sometimes is the worst of places, but his therapist had explained that he had needed to let the sad emotions out whenever they came up, that bottling them up led to unexpected explosive situations.

Keith quietly promised to himself that he’d help Lance do the same before he closed his own eyes and drifted off, his hand idly rubbing up and down Lance’s spine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though this story has a large amount of Langst, I do want to reiterate that it is a Klance fic, so depsite everything that Lance is dealing with, his relationship will progress more than it already is.
> 
> Also, please leave comments, they fuel my soul. <3


	4. Let Her Lay in a Bed of Flowers

Lance was sitting cross legged on the beach, his arms behind him, bracing his weight as he leaned back, just out of reach of the water that was cresting on the soft white sands. The sun was well past setting behind him, the sky in front of him lit up with the moon and stars. His thoughts a mess in his head but focused around a single thing, Keith.

“Here you are, mijo,” his mother’s sweet voice called from behind him.

He smiled, but didn’t turn as he hummed in response. She sat next to him without saying anything and they sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes.

Lance could tell he was dreaming, he remembered this night. It was the summer after his second year of his undergraduate studies, two years of knowing Keith, sixteen months of deciding he didn’t hate him like he originally thought, twelve months of an amazing friendship, and six months of realizing he wanted more than that.

“Mamá…” Lance said softy.

“Yes mijo?”

“I think I’m in love with Keith,” he continued, eyes never leaving the water before him.

“Think?”

He finally turned his gaze from the water before him to settle on her face. She wore that knowing smile she always did when Lance was unsure about things. He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees with a laugh.

“No, I’m pretty sure I’m definitely one-hundred percent in love with him,” he replied, unable to stop smiling.

“Does he know?” his mamá asked.

Lance laughed again, though the previous joy on his face fell to a sad expression.

“No… I don’t think he even sees me that way. I mean, our friendship is so good; I don’t want to lose that over something as stupid as confessing feelings. I don’t want to put that strain on this,” Lance explained wringing his hands in his lap.

“Mijo, your feelings are not stupid, don’t ever think that,” his mother said with a bite to her tone before she continued, “do you really think you’d lose his friendship over your feelings for him?” 

Her hand came to rest on his knee and Lance sighed but didn’t respond.

He honestly didn’t know how Keith would react. He knew Keith was gay, that was a conversation they’d had early on in their friendship, they’d discussed their struggles of coming to terms with their sexualities, their personal acceptance of who they were as people, and the support they’d received from those they cared about. But confessing to Keith that he loved him was something different altogether. Lance knew Keith loved him as a friend, like he loved Hunk and Pidge, but anything beyond that was doubtful to him.

Lance’s eyes had drifted back to the water before him, the sound of the waves breaking on the beach a calming sound.

“You should bring him home,” her voice interrupted his thoughts, “for the summer holidays.”

He turned back to her, a slight furrow in his brow.

“I don’t think that’s-” Lance started before he was cut off as she continued.

“In fact, invite them all down here. We’ll have a party. I want to meet this boy who has captured my Lancito’s heart so thoroughly.”

“Mamá, I-” Lance tried again.

She raised her hand to stop him. “No mijo. No refusing. You call them and invite them down or I will do it myself.”

Lance laughed again. “Ok mamá, ok. I’ll call them tomorrow.”

Satisfied with his answer she stood up, brushing the sand off her pants and turned to leave.

“Don’t stay out here too long.”

Lance hummed in response again as she walked away.

***

Lance woke with a jolt and there was suddenly a hand on his cheek and a soft voice soothing him. His breathing was rapid and he could feel the sweat on his forehead.

He blinked rapidly, disoriented from his sleep for a few moments before he realized that Keith was still there, wrapped in his arms. Pulling him closer and taking a deep breath his awareness returned fully.

He frowned though; when he realized that his face was now pressed into a t-shirt that Keith had definitely not been wearing when they had laid down to take a nap. His hand slid down Keith’s back and came to rest on his very jean clad ass.

“Why are you wearing clothes?” Lance asked; his voice deep and rough with sleep.

“Well,” Keith began, “I’ve been a bit busy and it’s kind of illegal to be seen in public without pants on.”

Lance’s frown deepened as his eyes looked first at Keith’s face before catching on the now dark window of his room. His hands let go Keith and he sat up quickly.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed. “Fucking, shit, why didn’t you wake me up sooner? I have so much to do. Fuck.”

“Lance-” Keith started.

Lance ignored him and scrambled out of the bed, searching frantically for his clothes.

“Lance, no, please-” Keith began again.

“I knew I shouldn’t have gone to sleep; now I’m behind with all the planning. I was supposed to go to the florist and, and work on t-the, the…” Lance was talking to himself at this point, losing his train of though in his scramble.

Lance was pulling one of his pant legs up while he grabbed his phone and turned the screen on before dropping to the edge of the bed in defeat. It was eight-fifteen. He’d slept for six hours.

“Fuck, they’re closed now,” he said as he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his face in his hands.

“White stargazer lilies, yellow gladiolus, and white orchids,” Keith’s voice came from behind him on the bed.

“What?” Lance replied, turning his upper body to look at Keith.

His face was sympathetic, his eyebrows turned up in the middle and half smile on his lips.

“White stargazer lilies, yellow gladiolus, and white orchids,” Keith said again.

Confusion was still written all over Lance’s face as he stared at Keith.

“I tried to wake you around three-thirty, to make sure you had enough time to go to the florist,” Keith began explaining. “But you were out cold, I even tried using your own phone’s ringtone to wake you up, but it didn’t work,” Keith cleared his throat as he continued, “so I went and picked the flowers for you.”

Keith settled himself partially behind Lance, his legs folding beneath him as he tried to gauge what reaction Lance would have.

Lance was still for a few moments eyes unfocused as he stared passed Keith.

Keith had done this for him. Lance knew he should be asking for help, but he didn’t want to ask anyone, he wanted to do this for his mother, in support of his family, to give back some of the strength his mother had given him. He wanted to be a pillar for his family, and if taking care of all the preparations and arrangements needed to let his mother rest peacefully - then he’d do it. But here was Keith, fitting so well into his family and life as he’d done for the last 6 years, helping anyway, just like he’d always done. Just like he always would, Lance hoped.

His eyes refocused on Keith’s face as he raised his hand and it came to rest on his jaw, his thumb rubbing across Keith’s lower lip. He turned his body so he could crawl onto the bed, the one leg of his pants that he had managed to get partially up his leg sliding down and off his foot onto the floor. His eyes were dark as they closed and his lips came to rest on Keith’s.

Keith let out a deep sigh he didn’t realized he’d been holding back and one of his hands came to rest on the one Lance had on his face.

“So those flowers are okay?” Keith asked, breaking their kiss to take a breath, his eyes flicking between Lance’s eyes and the mouth he desperately wanted to kiss again.

Lance’s only response was to shift up to support his weight completely onto his knees, bringing his other hand to Keith’s face and pulling him back in for another kiss.

Keith shifted, stretching his legs out, tilting his head slightly to better align their mouths, one hand finding its way to Lance’s hair and the other finding a place on the bare skin of his rib cage.

Lance lowered one of the hands on Keith’s face down to his chest and pushed, lowering Keith back onto the bed without breaking the kiss, the other hand on his face moving to the bed beside Keith’s face to support his weight. Words were going to betray him right now, so he decided to show Keith how he felt. How much he loved that Keith did this for him, how much he appreciated the way he never asked how he was doing, how he loved that he was here.

He growled slightly into the kiss as Keith’s teeth bit and pulled slightly on his lower lip. The hand that had been on Keith’s chest slid up under the shirt he was wearing, barely there touches flittering over his skin. Keith’s hand tightened in Lance’s hair with a soft whine. Lance’s breathing was getting short, his heart rate increasing as he moaned from Keith’s grip.

His fingers brushed over one of Keith’s nipples a few times as he swung his leg over Keith’s so he was straddling him. His mouth moved from Keith’s lips to kiss along his jaw, working the spot where the corner of his jaw was – the spot that always turned Keith on.

“L-Lance,” Keith’s voice stuttered out, his breaths coming out as pants as his other hand found its way to Lance’s hair, both gripping tight as Lance’s mouth moved down his neck to his collar bone that was exposed under his black v-neck shirt.

Lance pulled back, Keith’s hands slipping out of his hair, as he sat back up on his knees. His hand pushed the edge of Keith’s shirt up before Keith sat up to take it the rest of the way off.

Leaning back down, Lance pressed kisses into the skin of Keith’s chest. Keith’s head fell back, panting, his hands finding their way to Lance’s shoulders, his fingers nails digging in slightly.

A smirk found its way to Lance’s face as he drew a low moan from Keith as he was mouthing along the waistband of his pants. His hands were resting on Keith’s waist, fingers flexing, pressing into his skin. Lance could feel the muscles in Keith’s stomach twitching, moving beneath his lips. Sliding his hands down, they settled over the very obvious tent in Keith’s pants. He looked up at Keith’s flushed face, silently asking permission.

Keith nodded, biting his lower lip in anticipation brushing the hair that fell onto Lance’s forehead out of the way.

Lance made quick work of the button and zipper on Keith’s pants, pulling them down in a fluid motion, leaving them both in their boxers.

But as Lance’s fingers flitted around the waistband of Keith’s boxers, he stilled. His brows furrowed and he sat up and his breath shortened for entirely different reasons.

“Lance?”

Lance’s hands started to shake and he could feel the sting behind his eyes.

“Lance, what’s wrong?” Keith asked, sitting up quickly and placing his hands on either side of his boyfriend’s face.

“I-I…” Lance started, he was beginning to hyperventilate.

Keith tried to pull him closer but Lance pulled away and slid off the bed. Keith quickly followed after him, reaching to grab his hand that was just out of reach.

Lance jerked the door to his bedroom open and stepped out, turning towards the hallway and the other doors.

“M-maria?” Lance asked, his voice catching as he still struggled to take a full breath, his arms visibly shaking as he stood there. His hands clenching and unclenching repeatedly as he tried to stop the shaking.

Keith could smell it then, the vanilla and sandalwood that wafted heavily through the hallway. Her perfume. He grabbed Lance’s hand as he stepped into the hallway and looked at the door where Maria had fallen to the floor around a broken perfume bottle.

“I-I’m s-so sor-sorry,” Maria hiccuped out through her sobs. “I-I didn’t… I didn’t mean t-to drop it.”

Another wave of gasping sobs started and she dropped her face into her hands.

Keith looked up at Lance’s face. He looked torn between concern and terror, frozen in the spot where he was standing. He let go of Lance’s hand and hurried over to Maria.

“Hey, it’s ok. No one is mad,” he said calmly, taking her hands and helping her up off the floor.

“I-it was the only, the only one sh-she had left,” Maria tried to explain through her tears.

“Shhh, it’s alright.”

“B-but,” she tried again.

Keith threw one last glance at Lance, who still hadn’t moved from his spot in the hallway. His eyes were locked on the broken bottle, the color drained from his face and his eyes glassy.

Keith walked Maria into her room and helped her into her bed.

“Try to rest, we’ll take care of it,” he said, pushing the hair out of her face and she clutched at the sheets on her bed and continued sobbing.

He quickly walked back into the hallway to Lance, once again placing his hands on his face and pulling Lance’s face to look at him.

“Breathe, Lance. Focus on my breathing and just breathe with me,” he said quietly.

It took about thirty or so seconds before Lance’s eyes refocused on Keith’s and tried to calm his breathing. It took another similar length of time before Lance seemed to match some of Keith’s deep breathing.

“It’s alright, babe. Just breathe,” Keith said running his thumbs along Lance’s cheekbones.

Lance dropped his face into Keith’s shoulder and took a deep shuddering breath, his hands grasping Keith’s hips, grounding himself back in reality.

“I’m sorry,” Lance mumbled softly.

Keith responded by pulling him closer in a tight hug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, obviously the rating went up, I'm unsure if it will go up again. I'm undecided at this point.  
> Debating on a slight fic title change, from "Learning to Grieve" to "Letting Yourself Grieve," which I think may actually fit this story better.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	5. Never Enough Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit from Keith's point of view.

It was ten-thirty and Lance sat in the hard metal chair in front of his desk; staring at the blinking cursor icon in the word document he had open. His fingers were poised over the keys but were unmoving.

Keith sat on the bed behind him, mouth pulled into a small frown but eyes full of concern. Pushing for Lance to talk wouldn’t do either of them any good at the moment, the years of being together made that clear. Pulling his knees up and resting his cheek on his crossed arms, Keith let out a quiet sigh. Somehow he was going to have to coax Lance into letting go of the walls he had put up, but how exactly to go about that without making Lance mad, he wasn’t sure.

Maybe he needed to talk to someone else. Keith worried his lip as his brows furrowed and his face settled into a deeper frown. Keith was never very good at comforting people, he had much better luck just doing, but being with Lance taught him that going about things that way wouldn’t always work out.

“You’re thinking awfully loudly over there,” Lance spoke up quietly, tapping his fingers on the keys in a repetitive rhythm.

“And you’re being awfully quiet over there,” Keith retorted without malice, the frown still present on his face.

Lance shrugged, “I just don’t know what to say.” He turned his body so he could look over at Keith. “She meant so much to us that I just don’t know how to compress all that into a couple lines. Like… I just… I have so much I want to say but I just don’t know how to say it.”

The look of defeat on Lance’s face made Keith’s heart clench.

“Maybe,” Keith started, already beginning regret this train of thought, “maybe let one of your brother’s do this part?”

“No,” Lance responded firmly, his expression hardening. “I’m doing this, they don’t need to.”

He turned back to his computer but not before Keith caught the scowl that had formed on his face. Keith hit his head on his arms, silently calling himself stupid. He was pushing and he knew it wasn’t going to work. Sliding off the bed, he walked over to Lance and pressed a kiss into his temple.

“I’ll be back in a bit, I’m going to check in with the others,” he said before turning and walking through the open bedroom door.

He vaguely heard a grunt of acknowledgement from behind from Lance.

Keith glanced down the hallway, Maria hadn’t left her room since she dropped the perfume bottle and at some point while he was sitting with Lance in his room Isaac had gone to his room as well.

Eyeing the still dark spot on the floor from where the perfume had soaked the carpeting, Keith let out another sigh before he headed down the stairs. As he was about to hit the call button on Hunk’s contact information he heard the clink of a glass bottle and wet, hiccuping sniffle come from the living room. Shoving the phone back into his pocket, he made his way into the room.

Lance’s father was sitting in an old armchair holding the fancy portrait of Lance’s mom in one hand, the other holding a glass cup half filled with scotch, the bottle sitting half empty on the small end table next to him. Keith watched as he set the photo on his leg and gently ran his fingers across his wife’s cheek.

“Natalia,” he whispered hoarsely as tears fells cascaded down his eyes. He took a big drink from his glass before running the back of his hand over his eyes to wipe away the tears.

Keith’s heart broke watching the man he had come to see as another father mourn the loss of the woman he loved with all his heart. Keith hopped that maybe one day he and Lance could share that kind of everlasting love. Walking into the room he sat down next to Lance’s father.

“Mr. McClain,” Keith started.

“Tomas, Keith, how many times have I told you to call me Tomas?” he interrupted with a short, dry laugh and a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

Keith gave him a sad smile, “Tomas,” he corrected, “uhm…” God, he didn’t know how to ask the man if he wanted to talk about it.

“You know,” Tomas started, taking another drink of his scotch, “Natalia loved you like a son. She was always telling our neighbors about the amazing boy her Lancito had found, bragging about how well you did in your in studies. From the first time Lance brought you home you fit right in, like a missing puzzle piece.”

Keith flushed deeply. He had know Natalia cared deeply for him, she cared deeply for everyone she had ever met, but to know she actively spoke about him to strangers was something else. However, before Keith could interject, Lance’s father continued.

“She was so damn proud of you both,” he said, tears visibly welling up in his eyes again. “So, so proud of her boys, of all her children. We both are so proud of you.”

“I…” Keith tried, but he could feel the tears welling up in his own eyes and his voice caught in his throat.

He knew Shiro’s parents were proud of him, but they weren’t the type to actively reaffirm that through words and praise. They rewarded academic and athletic excellence with small gifts; trinkets they thought were suited to accomplishment. Keith pulled the older man into a tight hug.

“You should get some rest,” Keith spoke softly.

Tomas nodded before pushing himself up out of the seat. He walked to the mantel of the fireplace and put Natalia’s picture back in its spot. He turned back to the bottle on the lamp table, seemingly hesitating on whether or not to take it with him.

“Go, get some sleep, I’ll clean up,” Keith said, grabbing the bottle by the neck and picking up the glass.

Tomas nodded before heading out of the room. Keith waited until he heard the creak on the stairs before walking into the kitchen and placing the cup in the sink. He glanced at the scotch bottle in his hands, contemplating. Tomas had never really been a drinker in the time that Keith had known him. Lance had said he’d hit a rough patch some time ago while Lance was in his last year of middle school and had taken to drinking as a way to cope. In Lance’s sophomore year of high school, he’d had a small heart attack. Thankfully nothing life threatening in the long term, but it was eye opening enough that his dad had all but signed off on alcohol, limiting his drinking to special occasions, major holidays, and even then, just a single drink. Keith frowned at the bottle before he put the lid back on it and put it back in the cabinet.

Keith rubbed his face repeatedly. His jet lag was catching up to him and he sighed before hopping up to sit on the counter. He pulled his phone out, scrolling through his contacts again to Hunk’s name.

“Hey, Keith,” Hunk’s voice answered loudly over a lot of noise in the background.

“Hey, where are you right now?” Keith asked, flinching a bit from the noise coming through the speaker.

“Pidge, Shay, and I are just finishing up dinner, a family with a bunch of screaming kids just walked in,” Hunk all but shouted over the phone as the background noise got louder.

“Jesus,” Keith replied.

“Yeah, we’re on our way out,” Hunk said just as the noise in the background disappeared. “Whew, we’re out now, what’s up?”

“I need some advice,” Keith started.

“Here, hold on, I’ll put you on speaker for the others,” Hunk replied, the sound of car doors closing in the background.

“Hey, Keith,” he heard Pidge and Shay’s voices say.

“Hi guys,” Keith replied, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a huff.

“Yeah, let’s try again, what advice do you need?” Hunk asked.

“It’s about Lance.”

“Do you know if he slept? Because if he didn’t, I’ll kick his ass when I get there,” Pidge’s voice grumbled.

“It’s not that, he did sleep. I’m actually here in Miami at the moment. He got about six hours, but that’s not much considering he told me earlier he hadn’t slept in 3 days,” Keith responded.

“Oh my god,” Shay’s soft voice came through.

He only registered Hunk’s exasperated sigh through the speaker.

“That’s not what I need advice about though,” Keith went on. “He’s not… he wont let himself… ugh, how do I explain this. He hasn’t cried yet.”

There was silence over the phone.

“He’s never had a problem expressing his emotions before, so I just know he’s a mess inside right now, but I can’t get him to let go. And I know he doesn’t want me to ask him how he’s feeling, but if he doesn’t let go, it’s going to end badly.”

A low hum registered through the speaker into Keith’s ear before he continued.

“I don’t want to push him, but I’m afraid if I don’t this is just going to get worse. Extended family is supposed to start showing up tomorrow, this is too much for him to take on by himself, but he won’t let anyone help. I mean, I kind of took getting the flowers together on by myself without him knowing, but that was only because he was asleep and he needed the sleep, but I-”

“Keith,” Pidge’s voice broke through his rambling.

Keith’s mouth snapped shut and he rubbed his hand down his face again.

“I know this probably isn’t the answer you want to hear,” they began, hesitation clearly evident in their voice, “but you’re going to have to let him decide when to ask for help.”

“But, Pidge, he’s not going to,” Keith replied, “he’s too fucking stubborn to ask for help with this. He feels like it’s all he can do for everyone.”

“Perhaps all you need to do right now, Keith, is just stay by his side,” Shay said.

Keith frowned. “I’m not good at sitting by though, you all know this.”

“It’s all you can do right now,” Hunk replied. “And you won’t really just be sitting by; he’ll depend on you, in his own way.”

“You’re right, this wasn’t what I wanted hear,” Keith bit back, a hint of anger in his words.

“Keith, everyone grieves differ-” Pidge started.

“That’s just it though, Pidge, he’s not! He’s not grieving. Every time something happens that reminds him of his mom it’s like he’s borderline having a panic attack, but he just, he won’t let go, he won’t cry, he won’t get angry, he just redirects, forces himself back on task to this stupid list of things that he says needs to be done. He won’t… he won’t-” Keith’s voice caught in his throat as his vision got blurry. “Fuck…”

Keith pressed the heel of his free hand into his eyes, trying to keep the tears in.

“I-I tried suggesting that he let one of his brother’s make the little pamphlet for her,” Keith continued. “I don’t want to push, but I don’t really know how to do anything else. When I lost my parents, it was bad, guys. I know what happens when you don’t let yourself feel the loss. I broke halfway through the funeral. If Shiro hadn’t have been there to physically drag me away…”

The stairs creaked and Keith looked up to see Lance walking towards the kitchen.

“I gotta go guys,” Keith said quickly, wiping his eyes again and taking a deep breath.

The line was quiet for a moment before Hunk spoke. “We’ll figure something out Keith. We’ll see you guys Friday night.”

“Yeah, see ya,” Keith replied before he hung up and cleared his throat.

“Keith,” Lance started as he stopped a little ways away from where Keith was sitting on the counter. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to snap at your earlier.”

Keith shook his head. “It’s fine, Lance.”

Lance studied his face for a moment longer before he hopped up on the counter next to him.

“Do you think a novel about my mother would be too much to read at a funeral?” he asked softy as he kept his eyes downcast at the kitchen floor.

Keith stared at Lance’s profile before he responded. “I don’t think anything less than a trilogy on her life would be enough.”

Lance huffed out a laugh before he let his head rest on Keith’s shoulder, his hand grasping Keith’s, intertwining their fingers. They sat in silence for a while, the air heavy with sadness.

“She was the strongest woman I ever knew,” Lance said softly as if trying not to disturb the night, “I just hope we made her proud.”

Lance’s grip on Keith’s hand tightened.

“You did, Lance. You all made her so proud, I know it,” Keith replied just as softly as he squeezed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I'm sure you've noticed, the summary and story title have changed, I think they better reflect the nature of the story now.
> 
> Please feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think so far.
> 
> Again, thanks for reading and I apologize if there are any mistakes, I'll try to fix them if I see them.


	6. Bleeding Ink Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little bit of a break from the tense angst as Lance finally gets to show Keith his thanks about the flowers.

Despite being exhausted himself, Keith was lying in Lance’s bed wide awake. Lance was curled into his side, breathing even, sound asleep. Keith’s fingers traced Lance’s features lightly, his eye brows, his cheek bones, his nose. They lightly danced over his lips that were parted slightly, his breath coming out in small puffs as he slept. He traced the dark circles under Lance’s eyes before carding his fingers through his brown hair.

He had been annoyed with the advice his friends had given him earlier, but now that he’d had time to think about it, they’d been right. Whatever was going to happen would be inevitable. Whether Lance decided to ask for help or his walls crashed down at the worst possible time, Keith would be there, no questions asked.

“I want to marry you,” Keith spoke softly even though he knew Lance wouldn’t hear him in his sleep, “I love you more than I think you know. I never knew I could love someone this much. I was going to propose to you, when I got back from Japan, but now I think I should wait. I wanted it to be a surprise, your family gathered around. But the most important person isn’t here any more, and I’m not sure how long it’s going to be before you feel ok again, if you ever feel ok again. So we’ll wait… just a little bit, for things to settle down again.”

He could feel the tears prickling in his eyes again but this time he didn’t fight it.

Natalia had reminded him of his own mother so much the first time he had met her, that he wasn’t really sure how to act at all. A stunned stupor is probably the best way to describe his reaction to her when she’d pulled him into a tight hug three minutes after meeting him.

***

“Mamá,” Lance called after opening to door to his house. He’d picked Keith, Hunk, and Pidge up from the airport, “my friends are here.”

She walked out of the kitchen, drying her hands on the towel that was partially tucked into the strings of her apron. Her long, very dark, curly hair had been pulled into a messy bun at the base of her neck.

“Ah, mijo, I’m glad you all made it safely, but I thought you said there would be five guests,” she replied.

“Mamá, this is Pidge and Keith, you already know Hunk,” Lance said, gesturing to each person. “Shiro and Allura couldn’t make it, conflicts with work on such short notice.”

Lance bit his lip as he watched his mother evaluate each of his friends before he eyes landed on Keith, appraising him for longer than the rest. He glanced at his friend’s faces, his eyes lingering on the slightly uncomfortable look that rested on Keith’s face before refocusing on his mother.

She nodded once before pulling each of them into a tight hug.

“Please call me Natalia,” she said, “none of this Mrs. McClain business. I am happy you’re all here and that you put up so well with my Lancito.”

She had turned to him and patted his cheek as she said this, Lance’s face flushing darkly.

“M-mamá,” he stuttered.

Hunk and Pidge chuckled.

“So what’s cooking?” Hunk asked, rubbing his hands together eagerly.

“A surprise, so you’d best stay out of my kitchen,” she’d responded.

Hunk looked defeated but nodded in agreement.

“Lancito, take your friends upstairs. I’ve set up Emilio and Gabriel’s old room for your guests.”

“Yes mamá.”

***

Keith sighed deeply, snuggling down to wrap his arms around Lance’s waist and pulling him close before letting his eyes flutter shut and sleep to overtake him. He felt Lance shift in his sleep to better accommodate Keith’s new position, their legs tangling together. Keith let out one more deep breath before he slipped into sleep.

 

\---

All Lance registered at first was that he was really warm and that there was an annoying light in his face even with his eyes still closed. He grunted softly before trying to roll away from whatever the light was; only there was something holding him down.

“What…” he mumbled, his voice rough.

A small groan drifted to his ears and he cracked his eyes open slightly. Keith was laying half on hop of him. He could feel their legs tangled together, he could feel Keith’s foot hooked behind his leg, and his arms wrapped snuggly around his waist, his head resting over his heart.

Lance stretched arms over his head, his joints popping softly before letting them drop back down, one hand resting on Keith’s bare back, the other in his dark hair. Keith shifted under his hands, turning enough so he could look up at Lance’s face, he eyes barely cracked open.

“Morning,” Keith’s voice cracked as he pulled one hand up to rub the sleep from his eyes.

Lance’s hand shifted down from his hair and rubbed his thumb across Keith’s cheek.

“Morning, babe.”

Lance was satisfied with the blush that still spread across Keith’s face even though they’d been dating for almost four years.

“What time is it?” Keith asked, shifting again so he was no longer tangled up with Lance and pushing the sheet off of them in the morning heat.

“I don’t know, just woke up,” Lance replied, his eyes drifting across Keith’s skin.

He’d felt bad, after what had happened yesterday. He’d wanted to physically show Keith how much he had appreciated him taking care of the flowers, but then Maria had dropped the perfume bottle.

“Hey,” Lance said, reaching a hand towards Keith who was now sitting up running a hand through his hair in an attempt to tame it.

Keith leaned forward, his hands supporting him and Lance pulled him into a deep kiss.

He could feel the smile spread of Keith’s face as he kissed him again and again.

“Definitely a good morning,” he said as he leaned back slightly.

Lance hummed in response, pulling Keith back in, nipping at his bottom lip. Keith sighed on his exhale and shifted so he was straddling Lance on the bed. Thighs pulled up tight alongside Lance’s. His hands settled against Lance’s chest, his fingers lightly brushing over his nipples.

Lance shivered, goose bumps cascading down his arms. His hands slid down from Keith’s face to his shoulders before he settled them back onto Keith’s hips, his fingers pressing dimples into the skin.

Keith moaned low in his throat, one hand sliding behind Lance’s neck as he rolled his hips forward slowly. Lance’s fingers dug into Keith’s hips harder, pulling him down as he rolled his hips back.

Keith broke the kiss to let out a breathy moan, resting his forehead against Lance’s as he ground his hips down again. He was already half hard and they were only just getting started. He could feel that Lance was in a similar state, so he rolled his hips down again as he grabbed a handful of Lance’s hair and pulled down.

Lance let out a dirty moan as his head tilted back, exposing his neck. Keith leaned forward and slid his tongue up Lance’s neck before nipping at his earlobe. Lance’s hips bucked up, hard, causing Keith to gasp and his grip on Lance’s hair tightened again.

“L-Lance,” Keith mumbled, almost breathless.

It had been just under a month since they’d last had sex – just before graduation actually. Keith had left for his trip to Japan a few days after the ceremony and he couldn’t deny the fact that his relationship with Lance, while very romantically affectionate, was also very physical. And god had he missed it while he was away.

Lance kissed his way down Keith’s neck, moving to push Keith onto his back. Once they had settled, Lance hovered over Keith, his eyes dark, his pupils blown wide with lust. He ran a hand up Keith’s thigh, dipping into the leg of his boxers and softly messaging the muscle there.

Keith’s eyes roamed up and down Lance’s body hungrily. He wanted his tongue all over the beautiful brown skin that stretched over toned muscles. His eyes met Lance’s again and fell closed as Lance surged forward with a heated kiss, supporting his weight on his forearm on the bed next to Keith’s head. His hips dipped forward pushing into Keith’s over and over, pleasing but still not enough.

Keith slid his hands down Lance’s back, slipping them under the waistband of Lance’s boxer’s, digging his fingers into the muscle of Lance’s ass pulling him down with more force.

A growl rumbled in the back of Lance’s throat at the hard grinding they were doing, but it wasn’t enough. He sat back up, grabbed the waistband of Keith’s boxers and pulled them down as Keith lifted his hips. Shuffling back so he could pull them completely off, he tossed them down on to the floor next to the bed.

“Have I ever mentioned that I fucking love your hips?” Lance asked in a gravely voice, a dirty smirk sitting on his face as his fingers traced ever so softly over the v-line of Keith’s hips.

A tremor coursed through Keith’s body as his own smirk spread across his lips.

“Only every time we fuuu-,” he answered, his words catching and turning into a high whine when Lance’s hand wrapped around him and his back arched off the bed. He was slightly surprised at his own body’s sensitivity as it seemed more so than usual, but he supposed three and a half weeks without his boyfriend’s touch could do that.

“Good,” Lance replied, leaning down to kiss Keith roughly, his hand squeezing and twisting in slow, even motions.

Keith caught Lance’s lower lip in his teeth and bit down, pulling before releasing it with a gasp, one hand fisting the sheets beneath him.

“You’re a goddamn tease,” his forced out, squeezing his eyes shut at the building pleasure he could feel in his stomach.

“You always say that,” Lance responded, starting to kiss his way down Keith’s chest, “but when I do it this way you always come harder and I love watching you when you come.”

Keith would willingly admit that he let out an embarrassing whine, there was no way he could deny that; Lance was always so straightforward about his appreciation for his body. He was panting, his mouth dropping open as he felt Lance’s mouth slid over him, his wet tongue dancing around his head. The tingly feeling that had started coiling in his stomach was spreading down to his toes and his legs pressed against Lance.

“I, I’m not going to la-” Keith let out in a gasp, his hand twisting in the sheet gripped in it. His other hand flew to Lance’s hair and gripped hard.

Lance pulled back enough to talk, wiping some of the spit off his chin in the process. “Let go, babe, I wanna swallow it,” he said for sliding his mouth back down as far as he could.

Keith’s back arched again and he came with a silent scream as Lance swallowed around him, cleaning him with his tongue. Lance pulled off and Keith’s body slumped down on the bed, still trembling. Keith didn’t think he’d come that hard in a while; he tried reaching for Lance but his body felt boneless and he wasn’t sure he had even lifted his hand.

Though it didn’t look to him like Lance minded all that much; his own hand was shoved down his boxers and he rocked back and forth, his teeth biting his lower lip hard, small grunts making their way into the room. It didn’t take long before Lance came himself, his body tensing after jerking sharply a few times, his mouth dropping open as he panted through his release, eyebrows furrowed deeply. He slumped forward, barely catching himself on shaking arms so he didn't land on top of Keith who still hadn’t found the strength to move.

Their eyes met in their hazy afterglow before they came together in a deep kiss.

“I love you so much,” Lance murmured before falling to the side of Keith, his breathing still labored.

“I love you too, Lance."

They lay next to each other for a while, appreciating the other’s presence before Lance shifted with a sigh.

Keith turned his head to watch as Lance pushed himself out of bed, sliding his messy boxers off and tossing them into the hamper in the corner after collecting Keith’s off the floor.

“As much as I would love to lie in bed with you all day, I have stuff I gotta do,” he said softly, his gaze locking with Keith’s eyes.

Keith smiled softy and nodded in response, pushing himself off the bed and walking over to Lance. He wrapped his arms around his boyfriend and kissed his cheek.

“Then we’d better shower and get a move on.” He turned and grabbed a towel off the floor, wrapping it around himself as he pulled the door open and walked across the hall to the bathroom.

“Be there in a minute.”

After he heard the water of the shower turn on Lance opened the second drawer of his desk and pulled a small black box out. He flipped it open, the light catching on the silver band that rested inside, he stared for a few moments before snapping it shut with a huff. All the timing had gone to shit, but the plans were still there. He knew he’d still ask Keith to marry him, he just wasn’t as certain as to when that was going to be anymore.


	7. Bleeding Ink Part 2

Lance groaned as he rubbed his hands down his face. His phone was on his desk and it hadn’t stopped vibrating since seven forty-five that morning. The word document open on his computer was still blank, the cursor icon blinking back as he stared at it.

How was he supposed to do this? It was literally impossible to condense everything his mother hand meant to them. Maybe he didn’t need to write anything at all. No, there needed to be something. He would never forgive himself if he couldn’t get this done. For her. He ran his hands down his face again, leaning his elbows on the desk in front of him. This should have been easy; he’d spent the last 6 years writing at school, he knew how to get words down on paper. But this was different. This was his mamá; she deserved the best he could offer.

But right now, he couldn’t give her anything. And it tore him up inside.

He could feel the heat rising is his face and the back of his eyes started to prickle. He took a shaky breath and pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes. There was no time for this.

“Fuck…” he whispered, pushing into his eyes until he could see color blooming behind his eyelids, trying to force the tears away.

“Lance?”

He jumped, knocking his knee against the edge of the desk.

“Ah, shit,” he hissed, a hand reaching down to grab his knee as he looked towards his door. “Gabe!”

His brother stepped into the room, adjusting his glasses on his face. “I tried calling earlier, so you’d have a heads up to when I’d be getting in, but it never went through.”

“Sorry about that, my phone’s been ringing off the hook,” Lance responded, pushing back from his desk and walking towards his brother. “I would have come to the airport to pick you up.”

“There was no need,” Gabriel responded, pulling Lance into a stiff hug. “I ended up driving down. Work had me at a conference in Orlando.”

Lance returned the hug, resting his chin on his brother’s shoulder, briefly realizing he was now taller than Gabriel.

“I saw Keith out back on the phone, but where is everyone else?”

Lance sighed as he pulled back. “Papá convinced Isaac and Maria to go out with him for a little bit. Pretty sure they walked to the park by the river.”

“The one where he and mamá carved their initials in the tree?”

Lance nodded.

“What about Emilio and Ana?” Gabriel continued.

“Aly’s not having an easy time right now, so Emilio decided to stay at home with them until the funeral. Amanda said she’d still cook, but that she’d do it there. You know, bring it over when it was done,” Lance replied. “Ana’s working, keeping herself busy.”

“And how are you doing?” Gabriel asked cautiously.

Lance looked away from his brother, a frown settling on his face. “Good.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes as he evaluated his brother. He had expected Lance to be a mess as he was easily the most emotional of all of his siblings, Maria right behind him in that line. But this didn’t feel right.

“Lan-” he started.

“Please don’t evaluate me like one of your projects. I’m fine. I’m a little busy though, so if you could find something else to do, that’d be great,” Lance interrupted, still not looking at his brother.

“Fine,” Gabriel responded in the same curt tone Lance had used. “I’ll go to the park and find papá.”

Lance only nodded back.

He waited until he heard the door shut behind his brother’s exit before grabbing the mug on his desk and throwing it as hard as he could at the wall. It broke on impact, the remnants of the tea Keith had brought him earlier splashing on the wall. He leaned on his desk, supporting himself on shaky arms, panting as he tried to regain his breath and screwing his eyes shut. He was getting really tired of everyone asking him how he felt and then questioning his response. If he said he was fine, he was fine. They should let it be.

His phone buzzed again repeatedly on his desk. He sighed and without looking down he picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Lance!” his uncle’s voice rang out.

“Hola tío Marco,” Lance said, pulling his phone away to look at the time, “shouldn’t you guys be on a plane right now?”

“That’s why we called,” hi uncle’s voice replied, though the volume diminished as he pulled back to yell to someone in Spanish.

Lance frowned; setting up the plane tickets for everyone had been an exhausting process. Lance tried to wait patiently for an explanation, but his uncle kept yelling at someone in the background.

“Tío…” Lance began, trying to regain his uncle’s attention.

“Ah right,” he responded, “Sofía and I are going to have to catch a different flight out, probably on Thursday.”

The frown on Lance’s face deepened. “What was wrong with the one today?”

“Well, we’ve had a little accident.”

Lance’s eye brows shot up and suddenly he was filled with panic. “What? Are you guys alright?”

“Yes, we’re fine, someone rear ended us on the way to the airport. Nothing major, but we’ve got to sort this out with the rental car company before we can leave. Sofía is on the phone with the airport right now getting our tickets rescheduled.”

Lance plopped down into the desk chair behind him.

“Ok, I’ll let papá know when he gets back and I’ll call the hotel here and change the days of the reservation.”

He ran a hand through his hair, pulling on the ends in slightly frustration.

“Gracias Lance. We’ll see you Thursday,” his uncle said and then hung up.

“Yeah… Thursday…” Lance mumbled as he set his phone down.

Lance groaned again putting his head in his hands, elbows resting on his legs, breathing deeply trying to push down the emotions that were threatening to overwhelm him. He slapped his cheeks once, hard enough to leave them a little red, before picking up his phone again and dialing the hotel’s number.

\---

Keith was sitting in a lawn chair, slumped down with his feet propped up on the brick wall that made up the fire pit. His phone was pressed to his ear, frowning slightly as his call wasn’t being picked up.

“Keith?” a sleepy voice finally answered him, realization overcoming Keith.

“Ah shit, Shiro, sorry, I completely forgot how late it was for you,” Keith quickly responded.

There was a shuffle in the background before he heard Allura’s voice ask if everything was alright. There was another shuffle, followed by Shiro telling Allura to go back to sleep, the drag of a door both open and closed.

“Keith, what’s up?” Shiro asked, sounding slightly more awake.

“It’s not super important that you needed to get up right now, I mean you guys will be here tomorrow,” Keith started.

“Don’t worry about it; our flight isn’t for ten hours.”

“Still…” Keith interrupted.

“I’ve still got enough time to sleep. And besides, it’s like a 16 hour flight; I can sleep then too,” Shiro reassured him, “now tell me what’s up.”

“Uhm, do you remember how when my parents died how I locked everything away?” Keith asked softly.

“Yes, of course I do.”

“And do you remember what happened at the funeral?”

There was a long pause. “I’m not sure I could ever forget, Keith. But what does this have to do with anything? Is everything alright?”

“Lance is doing the same thing,” Keith said.

“Oh,” Shiro responded, “oh shit.”

“I’ve tried pushing, tired convincing him to let someone help with all the preparations, but he won’t. He’s either going to realize there are people around to help him and let them or we’re going to have a repeat of what I did.”

Shiro didn’t respond this time.

“I just, I just wanted to give you a heads up. I’m watching for signs of a breakdown, but so far he’s held himself back with distractions, but I’m not sure how long he can do that. Emotions are kind of his thing. I just didn’t want whatever happens to seem to come out of no where to you guys.”

“Allura and I will be landing a little after two tomorrow in Miami, we’ll see if we can’t convince Lance to accept some help. Though, knowing he’s just as stubborn as you are, we might just have to force him to accept it. But we’ll see come tomorrow when we get there,” Shiro said, finishing with a yawn.

“Yeah. Thanks Shiro. You should get back to bed.”

Shiro yawned through his goodbye and Keith hung up with a sigh. Standing up and stretching he walked back into the house. He had seen Gabriel poke his head out the backdoor, asking where everyone was. Keith had been talking to Pidge so he’d only replied with a point towards the second floor where he knew Lance was still sitting at his desk staring at the blank document in front of him.

Lance had told him once that his relationship with Gabriel had always been a little strained, apparently something had happened while they were both in high school (something Lance still hasn’t explained further) and it had taken them a long time to even remotely begin to fix the issues between them. And it hadn’t helped that the year after it had happened; Gabriel had gone off to college. Their relationship was still rocky sometimes, but it was getting better. He just hoped that they could see eye to eye on what was currently happening.

As he neared the stairs he noticed that only his and Lance’s shoes were left, which meant that Gabriel had left at some point. With a soft sigh he trudged up the stairs, prepared to soothe Lance over whatever happened, though he hoped he wouldn’t have to.

He knocked once to announce himself before opening the door.

“Thank you so much,” Lance said into his phone before hanging up and looking up at Keith. “So, good news, we don’t have to go to the airport until later tonight.”

Keith frowned in response and walked over to sit on the bed. “What happened? Weren’t Marco and Sofía supposed to be here in a few hours?”

“Apparently they were in a car acci-,” Lance began.

“What?!” Keith began to interrupt; his eyes wide as he started to push get off the bed.

“No, they’re fine; they just have to deal with the rental company before they can hop on the plane. They’ll be here Thursday,” Lance reassured him.

“Jesus,” Keith replied.

“Yeah, Ben and tía Isa are still landing tonight sometime. Ben texted me from their layover, their flight is delayed a few hours,” Lance said with a slight shrug.

Keith nodded as Lance turned back to his computer before pushing up from the chair again with a sigh.

“I’m going to grab something to drink,” he mumbled walking out.

And that’s when Keith noticed it, thinking it was strange that Lance wasn’t taking the mug from his tea with him; the now dry, but slightly shiny splotch on the wall and the broken pieces of said mug on the floor. His head whipped to the door as he shot off the bed, but Lance was gone.

“Oh, Lance,” Keith whispered as he bent down to pick up the broken pieces of ceramic, grabbing one of their bath towels from the hamper to clean the wall off. 

His expression was pained as he finished gathering the pieces of the mug. He doubted Lance had even realized that it was the mug his mom had given him when he had been accepted to Stanford’s master’s program before he had even finished his undergraduate studies. Figuring he could attempt to glue it back together he double check for any more pieces before grabbing one of the zip locks out of his bag that had a few toiletries in it. Dumping them out, he replaced them with the broken mug pieces.

Lance’s phone buzzed on his desk again and Keith stood up to reach for it. Glancing at the name, he snatched it off the desk quickly, sliding the answer button over.

“Nyma?”

“Uh… Keith? I was pretty sure I hit Lance’s contact icon…” she replied, confusion coating her words.

“No, it’s the right number, Lance wasn’t near his phone…” he responded equally confused.

Why was Nyma calling? For all Keith knew, they all hadn’t spoken much since everyone had graduated with their undergrad degrees and she and Rolo had moved back to Canada to start some sort of event planning company with her parents help. And even then, when Lance had heard from them, he let everyone know how they were doing.

“Have you talked to Lance lately?” Keith asked.

“Actually, the last we spoke was a couple months ago. He asked me to call him back sometime this week; he wanted to finalize some plans.”

Plans? What plans? Keith’s confusion was slowly turning to annoyance.

“Damnit,” Nyma swore, “I’m actually not supposed to talk to you about this and I was sworn to secrecy.”

Annoyance was turning to anger. He and Lance didn’t keep secrets from each other any more. He let out a curt huff into the phone. “Nyma…”

“Oh, none of that now, Keith, it’s not a bad secret; really it’s just more of a surprise. You’d actually like it, but I just can’t tell you. Please just let Lance know I called and to have him call me back.”

Keith bit his lip, quelling his anger. “This is actually a bad week, so it probably won’t happen until next week at the earliest.”

He heard Nyma hum through the phone. “What do you mean bad? What happened?”

Keith frowned, if she and Lance hadn’t talked in couple months she didn’t know.

“Nyma, his mom passed away this last weekend, the funeral is Saturday.”

Nyma gasped into the phone, her voice was distant with her next words. “Rolo! Pack a bag; we’re going to Miami for a week.”

“I thought this trip wasn’t supposed to happen for another week and a half!” Rolo’s voice replied faintly.

“Lance’s mom died,” she shouted back.

There was a crash in the background and the Rolo’s voice was suddenly much closer.

“How’s he taking it?”

“Keith, I’m switching to speaker.”

Keith rubbed a hand down his face and released an exasperated sigh. It was no wonder really, how Lance had befriended these people. They were so alike.

“Ok, Keith, how’s he doing?” Nyma asked.

“If you asked him, he’d tell you he’s fine…”

“But…?” Rolo’s voice questioned.

“He’s trying to bottle it in for now. Look, we actually need Lance’s phone free for other calls, his relatives are supposed to start showing up today.”

“Ah, no problem. Please let him know we’ll be there for the funeral, and not to worry about the surprise, we can execute that whenever he’s ready,” Nyma replied.

“Yeah. Bye Nyma, Rolo,” Keith said.

“Bye” they both replied before hanging up.

“Who was on the phone?” Lance’s voice asked from the doorway.

Keith startled, every muscle in his body tensing in surprise. He turned to see Lance was now behind him, a clear glass filled with water in his hand.

“Nyma.”

He noticed Lance’s eyes widen briefly and a flush bloom across his face.

“Did… did she, uh, did she mention anything?” Lance asked.

“Yes,” Keith replied, purposefully keeping his responses vague in an attempt to get Lance to let whatever this surprise was slip out.

Lance bit his lower lip and his eyes flickered to the second drawer of his desk before settling back on Keith’s face. Keith hummed, eyes narrowing at Lance before his face relaxed into a small smirk.

“Just that she’d like you to call her back about a surprise,” Keith teased before continuing, “and I told her about your mom, she and Rolo are flying down to be here for the funeral.”

Lance nodded, though the blush across his face had yet to recede.

“G-good, I’m glad they’re able to come down,” he said, a small confused frown appearing on his face as he said that. “Not that it’s good in that it’s for a funeral, but, I mean, good that they’re… ah fuck. I’m just going to stop talking and get back to this.”

He sat himself back down in front of the laptop on his desk.

Keith huffed a slight giggle before plopping down on the floor next to Lance, leaning into his legs and resting his cheek against Lance’s knee. He closed his eyes when he felt one of Lance’s hands card through his hair, but frowned sadly when he felt the slight tremble as it came to a rest before disappearing. Keith turned his face slightly and kiss Lance’s thigh just below the hem of his shorts.

\---

Keith wasn’t sure when he’d dozed off, but he roused to a soft whispering above him. Cracking his eyes open he vaguely registered that the person standing in the doorway that Lance was talking to was his father.

“How was the park?” Lance asked.

“It was nice. We sat under the tree and talked.”

“Isaac and Maria? Did Gabe find you guys?”

“Doing a little better than yesterday, all things considered. Yes, Gabe found us. He took Isaac and Maria to the store to pick up some things for Amanda. How’s it going here?” Tomas asked.

“As well as it can, I suppose,” Lance murmured back. “I should have this done soon so I can run to the printer.”

Keith shifted and tried to stifle a yawn.

“Oh, looks like sleeping beauty has rejoined us,” Lance quipped, though the humor in his voice was diminished.

“I’ll leave you two be,” Tomas said as he turned and headed back downstairs.

“How long was I asleep?” Keith asked.

“Not too long, about an hour. Time change still catching up with you?”

“I guess, though I didn’t feel tired when I sat down.” Keith replied, standing up to stretch.

Lance clicked a few keys on his laptop before pulling the thumb drive out of the slot and standing up.

“Well, I’m all set here to go to the printer. You can come if you want, if not, it’s just papá here,” he said, grabbing his wallet and phone and stuffing them into his pockets before grabbing the photos that were next to his desk.

Keith’s eyes drifted to the bag full of broken ceramic sitting in his luggage.

“I think I’ll stay this time,” Keith replied, “don’t want to leave your dad all alone.”

He reached out and cupped Lance’s cheek and gave him a small smile. “Don’t be gone too long.”

Lance leaned forward and pecked Keith on the lips in a chaste kiss before he headed down the stairs and out of the house.

“Time to get to work, Kogane,” Keith muttered to himself as he picked up the baggy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a little slow and very dialogue heavy. I'm sorry for that. :<


	8. The Long Way to Church

Lance trudged back into his bedroom at two-thirty in the morning. Ben and Isa’s layover delay had somehow had a second, longer delay, putting them in the airport at one-thirty in the morning.

He pulled his shirt off, blindly throwing it towards the corner where the hamper was before doing the same with his pants. Rubbing his eyes he crawled in next to Keith who was blissfully sound asleep. Lance had insisted that he stay here instead of dealing with the madness that was the airport and that he’d be fine despite the late hour. In hindsight, Lance realized he should have taken Keith with him, if only to keep his family members from pestering him about his planned proposal to the man.

Shifting onto his side, Lance threw an arm over Keith’s waist before he fell asleep.

\---

There was a rhythmic sensation running over his head that sent shivers down his spine as he was reluctantly waking up. He pushed his face harder into the solid warmth by his side and groaned.

“Lance… baby,” Keith’s voice called to him softly, still slightly rough with sleep, fingers still working through his hair.

“Lance isn’t here right now,” he replied, voice muffled by Keith’s chest.

“Well then, my boyfriend will be super jealous that I’m in bed with another man.”

Lance hummed, “As long as he isn’t as hot as your boyfriend, I don’t think he’d mind.”

Keith let out a soft laugh. “What time did you get in last night?”

“Two-thirty,” Lance mumbled, trying to wiggle closer to Keith’s body heat.

“It’s six-ten; I’ll give you two more hours, sound good?”

“Bless,” Lance replied as Keith settled back down beside him.

\---

He was sitting in the dark, but he knew where he was. There was no light, but he knew the casket was in front of him; his mother’s body lay inside, void of life. 

There was a weight pushing down on him. It was suffocating.

He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t remember how to breathe.

Don’t panic.

It’s just a dream.

He couldn’t breathe.

The boa constrictor was around his chest again, squeezing.

How do you breathe again?

The others were around him, crying, but it was still so dark.

The light was gone. She was gone. She was never coming back.

The weight was crushing. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t bear it any more.

“Lance!”

He knew that voice but he couldn’t pull himself out of the dream to respond.

This was a dream, right? 

He couldn’t speak.

He couldn’t breathe.

“Lance, please wake up!”

Keith. That was Keith. Why did he sound so scared?

“Babe, please…”

\---

Lance eyes shot open as he forced himself awake. In his panic he had pushed back from Keith’s body and fell out of the bed, landing on the floor. He pulled his knees up to his chest, hands pulling on his hair.

He still couldn’t breathe.

Keith was next to him, his hands covering his own. They were shaking. Or was the shaking coming from his own hands? He was too hot. His breathing was coming out in sharp gasps, there wasn’t enough air. Why wasn’t there enough air?

The ringing in his ears was unbearable; it was all he could hear. His vision was bleary, he couldn’t focus. He was shaking so hard he couldn’t make himself to stop.

Keith wrapped his arms around his body pulling him up and closer to cradle his head against his chest. Lance tried to focus on the sound of Keith’s heart. It was pounding.

How could he do this? How could he upset someone he loved? Why couldn’t he pull it together? This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to the strong one. The supporter. If the supports failed there was nothing left. Everything would fall, there would be no recovery.

They couldn’t come back from this if he fell to pieces.

Could they even come back from this?

Maybe he was too weak.

He didn’t know how long he sat there with his head cradled against Keith, but eventually his arms fell to his side as his body registered that it was exhausted. The ringing in his ears subsided, the sound of Keith’s heart loud against his ear. His breathing evened out but he didn’t have the energy to do anything.

Keith’s voice registered to him next. He was humming softly; Lance knew the soft melody but couldn’t identify the song in his exhaustion. His body went limp in Keith’s arms after that.

Keith’s grip loosened slightly now that Lance’s body wasn’t trembling so harshly, his heartbeat slowing down. He vaguely registered the pain from where Lance’s nails had scratched him raw, but it didn’t matter, this was only the beginning if Lance didn’t let some of the responsibility go.

“Keith?” Lance asked, his voice sounded wrecked, like he had been screaming. Had he been screaming?

Keith pulled back slightly to respond, “Hey…”

Lance’s lower lip trembled and his face scrunched as he tried to stop the sob that was trying to burst from his chest.

“Keith, I…” he took a shuddering breath as the tears welled up in his eyes.

Keith carded one of his hands through Lance’s hair before resting it on the side of his face, leaning in to kiss him on the forehead.

“I know. I get it.”

Lance let out a wet sob, the tears streaming down his cheeks as he clung to Keith’s body. His body was so tired, his muscles felt as if they were on fire. He couldn’t stop crying.

“It’s… It’s n-not f-fair,” he cried.

Keith continued running his hand through Lance’s hair, rocking back and forth slowly.

“It’s… not… f-fair,” Lance said again.

“Death is never fair, Lance. It comes when it wants, takes who it wants,” Keith began, taking a shuddering breath himself, “it doesn’t care about those left behind.”

Lance let out another wet sob, “I’m n-not strong enough to d-do this. I c-can’t hold everyone t-together.”

“It’s not wrong to ask for help,” Keith said softly. “You’re surrounded by people who want to help you as much as you’ve helped them.”

Keith could feel his own eyes begin to sting and well up with tears as he pulled Lance back against his body. He hated seeing Lance like this.

“Please let them help,” Keith continued, “a little bit, here and there, when it gets overwhelming. You never needed to shoulder this all on your own. You never needed to prove you were strong enough, Lance. She was your mother, you’re allowed to grieve. You’re allowed to be angry, to scream, to cry. There’s nothing weak in letting that out when something like this happens. No one will fault you for your feelings, Lance. No one.”

Lance hiccupped through another sob. “I didn’t want to be useless; I’m always so useless...”

Keith pulled back and placed his hands on both side of Lance’s head, leveling him with a deep frown. “You will never be useless, do you understand me? Never.”

The way he said it sent a shiver down Lance’s spine as he nodded and made a whimper in agreement.

Keith let out a deep breath. “Come on; let’s get you back into bed so you can rest.”

Lance tried to use his legs to push himself up off the ground but he didn’t have any energy left to do so. They shook with every movement he tried to make.

“I’m sor-“ he began.

“Don’t apologize, Lance,” Keith said as he bent down placing an arm behind Lance’s back and under his knees to lift him up, “there’s nothing to apologize for.”

Keith placed Lance back on the bed and pulled the sheet up over him.

“I’m going to go see who’s up and about, I’ll be right back,” Keith said, leaning down to brush the hair out of Lance’s face and press a kiss to his forehead, his cheek, and then his lips.

Lance nodded with a wet sniffle, his eyes drooping closed as tears still escaped from them.

***

Keith closed the door behind him softly, taking a moment to lean against it and let out a sigh. As much as it hurt Keith to see Lance fall apart like this, it was better that it happened now than in the middle of the service. He could help alleviate the stress and burden on Lance’s shoulders and they’d get through this. Keith let out another deep breath and pushed off of the door.

Isaac had his head peaking out of his door. “Is… is Lance ok?” he asked hesitantly, tears in his own eyes.

Keith took the few steps over to Isaac’s door. He should have realized someone would have heard Lance’s screaming before he woke up.

“No,” Keith replied with a sad smile. “He never wanted to ask anyone else to help him with all the prep for the funeral, but it’s too much for him.”

Isaac nodded, brushing the tears off his face with his hands. “I’ll do whatever he needs me to do, everyone else too.”

Keith nodded. “Is anyone else up? We all need to talk.”

“Papá’s downstairs in the kitchen, I can call Gabe and Emilio, they should both be up by now. I think the only one not up is Maria…”

“I’m up,” Maria’s voice sounded from behind Keith, it sounded like she’d been crying again. “I don’t think anyone could have slept through that,” she finished, gesturing towards Lance’s room.

“Ok, Isaac, call your brothers, Maria, if you could go down and tell your dad we all need to talk in a bit that’d be great. Maybe in an hour or so? I don’t want to leave Lance alone for too long right now,” Keith said.

Maria nodded and headed for the stairs as Isaac nodded and turned back into his room.  
Closing the door behind him softly, Keith padded back to the bed where Lance was curled up in a ball, his form still trembling accompanied by soft sobs.

Keith lay down behind him, tucking his knees behind Lance’s and wrapping him in his arms, kissing the nape of his neck softly. Lance’s body shuddered as he let out another wet sob.

Keith wasn’t sure how long they laid there in the bed, but he knew it was a while, and the whole time Lance had just barely begun to calm down. At some point Lance had moved his hands from where he had his face buried in them to grasp Keith’s where they were pressed firmly against his stomach. Keith had his head pushed into the space between Lance’s shoulder blades; his brows were furrowed tightly as he was a loss of what else to do for Lance right now aside from holding him.

There was a knock on the door that broke the quiet atmosphere of the room and Keith felt Lance’s whole body flinch. Keith kissed the nape of his neck again before extracting himself from Lance, knowing that he was supposed to be downstairs now.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Keith said softly, “I’m just going to go talk to your dad for a few minutes, alright?”

Lance sniffled before responding barely above a whisper. “Y-yeah, just don’t… don’t be gone too long. Please.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

Keith grabbed a shirt off the floor, not caring whose it was at this point and pulled it on, if only to hide the scratch marks from Lance’s panic attack. He pulled the door open and Isaac stood there wringing his hands and staring at the floor.

“It’s been an hour and a half, figured I’d come get you,” he said, peeking around Keith’s shoulder to look at Lance’s form on the bed.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that, let’s go,” Keith replied.

Isaac nodded and they walked down the stairs together and into the living room where the rest of Lance’s immediate family was waiting.

“Keith!” a girl as tall as Lance cried and rushed to hug him tightly.

“Hey Ana,” he said and hugged her back. “I guess since everyone is here let’s get right to it.”

Ana sat back down next to her Emilio, Gabriel standing behind them on the other side of the couch; Isaac and Maria were on the couch across from them while Tomas was sitting in his recliner chair.

“I know Lance has told all of you that he wants to take care of all the preparations for your mother’s funeral by himself, and that, despite all of you repeatedly offering to help him, he has declined, almost to the point of seeming angry.”

Emilio and Tomas nodded.

“Stubborn little shit, he is,” Ana interjected.

“Ana,” Tomas scolded.

Ana frowned in response but motioned for Keith to continue.

“I know it seems like he has a handle on the situation, but this is far more than he can handle, emotionally at least.”

Isaac and Maria both looked down at their hands that were resting in their laps.

“And I know it’s hard for all of you, I remember when I lost my own parents. But, uhm,” Keith paused, his train of thought getting caught in his own memory for a moment. He cleared his throat to continue. “What… what I’m trying to say is that Lance can’t deal with this alone any more. He had a panic attack this morning and he still hasn’t calmed down from it.”

Emilio’s hand tightened into a fist as he frowned and Gabriel nodded solemnly behind him. Tomas sighed deeply, his face filled with sorrow and empathy for his son.

“So, I’ve talked to Lance about letting you all help him and he’s agreed to it. Uh, I need one of you to go to the church this afternoon to finalize all the plans, Lance took the pamphlets and announcements to the printer yesterday so they should be finished today, those need to be picked up along with the photos he had enlarged which also need to be taken to get framed.”

“I can do that,” Emilio spoke up, “the precinct gave me the rest of the week off. Does Lance know what time the printing will be done today?”

Keith nodded, “he said sometime around 1.” He turned to Isaac and Maria. “You two are in charge of picking the music, I know Lance started a playlist on his computer, I’ll let you know if he picked anything yet.”

Maria and Isaac both nodded.

“My brother and his fiancé will be here this afternoon, I had planned to go pick them up myself but I really feel like I need to stay with Lance today, so if someone could pick them up for me that would be fantastic. Their plane lands a little after two,” Keith continued, scratching the back of his neck.

“I’ll get ‘em,” Ana spoke up

“Thank you, Ana. Uh, what else was there? Right, Isa and Ben had to change their flight, they’re landing tomorrow and Friday morning your grandparents will be arriving, there’s hotel accommodations already set up for everyone at the Hampton near the church. Pidge and Hunk will be here that night as well, I think by then Lance and I will be alright to pick them up. Aside from that it’s a matter of just making sure all the food is ready to go for Saturday.”

“I’ll get everyone else from the airport, it’s the least I can do,” Gabriel said.

“I’ll go with you, Gabriel,” Tomas added, nodding at his son.

“Amanda said the food is coming along fine, but, Ana, if you could give her a hand with the pastelitos tomorrow she’d really appreciate it,” Emilio said to his sister after looking up from his phone.

“Absolutely, I think I’ll feel better with more stuff to do, but if this is all that’s left then so be it,” Ana replied.

Keith nodded to everyone, though his thoughts lingered on what could happen at the ceremony on Saturday. “I’m going to head back up to Lance now,” he said and turned back to the hallway.

Keith pushed the door to Lance’s room open to find him sitting against the wall, his knees drawn up, elbows resting on them, hands fisted in his hair, breaths short and gasping again.

“Lance!” Keith gasped and ran to the bed.

It didn’t seem like Lance heard him through his hyperventilating and sobbing. Keith placed his hands over Lance’s and pressed his forehead against the others.

He started to sing softly, “I can see the stars… they’re calling out to me, to be a better man, to dream a better dream.”

He felt Lance’s fingers flex underneath his as he took another breath and continued.

“Come quickly ‘cause I’m dreaming. Make haste, I’m slowly sinking. If I’m not the chosen one, won’t be the same, won’t be surprised. And what for the rest of us? We’re still okay, we’re still alive...”

Lance’s fingers relaxed enough to let Keith lace his fingers through them as he continued to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry about the delay with this chapter. The end of June and beginning of July were very busy for me and then on top of that this chapter was very difficult to write out.
> 
> The song Keith sings is "[Stars](http://aurarre.tumblr.com/post/163624851774/telescope-stars)" by the band Telescope.


	9. Way Down We Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sad backstory and a little clarity.

Keith hadn’t so much as moved from his position sitting on the bed with Lance latched to his front sobbing for hours. Lance had been aware the Keith had been humming songs since he’d come back to the room, but he’d lost track of just how many he’d gone through.

There was a knock on the bedroom door and Lance took a shuddering breath against Keith’s chest as he tried to bury his face deeper. He didn’t want his family to see him like this, to know he couldn’t function right now. His tears had run out not long ago but his breathing and shaking had yet to come back under control. His head was pounding and his stomach was complaining that it was hungry. But he couldn’t get up. He couldn’t move.

“Come in,” Keith called softly, resting his cheek on Lance’s head.

The door was pushed open to reveal Shiro and Allura standing there, twin pictures of worry etched across their faces.

“Oh Lance…” Allura’s voice reached his ears.

His hands clenched Keith’s shirt tighter. Now his friends pitied him, he was a mess. He flinched when he felt a pair of hands land on his shoulders and began slowly rubbing circles across his back. His eyes filled with tears again as he took a wet, shuddering breath.

The bed dipped on either side of him and the smell of Allura’s fruity shampoo and Shiro’s cologne filled his nose, their arms resting over him.

He let out another wet sob and squeezed his eyes shut as his tears made their way down his cheeks.

\---

The voices were what roused him from his sleep, though he couldn’t remember actually falling asleep. Lance wondered if maybe he had cried so much he passed out. His fingers twitched where they were surprisingly still clenched in Keith’s t-shirt.

“I don’t really think there’s anything else we can do aside from just being there for him,” Shiro’s voice drifted into his mind.

“I know he absolutely hates this feeling, but to be honest, I’m glad it happened before the ceremony…” Keith’s voice sounded from right above his head.

Shiro hummed in response.

“If I may ask,” Allura interjected, “you have mentioned something happening at a funeral before, what exactly happened?”

Lance felt the deep sigh Keith let out from where his face was pressed against Keith’s chest. It was quiet for a few long moments, Lance wasn’t sure if Keith was going to tell her. He still didn’t know the whole story, just bits and pieces, but he did know that it was bad, and it had put Keith in a bad place that took him a while to get out of.

“When I was in my second year of high school I had made the school varsity soccer team, I was the youngest on the team at the time. I was only 15. We had a late practice one night a few days before the start of a big tournament that would have determined our national rank. My parents told me they’d come pick me up instead of having someone on the team take me home. Our house was in a neighborhood that was kind of difficult to navigate if you didn’t live there,” Keith began.

Lance opened his eyes slightly; his head was angled down so all he was the hem of Keith’s shirt. They felt swollen and sticky but he didn’t want to let go of Keith to rub them.

“It should have only taken them 15 minutes to get to the school so I told my coach and the rest of the team to go ahead and go and that I’d be fine. I was waiting in a well lit parking lot, had my phone out if I need it. I was going to be fine. Eventually they left, but my parents never showed up.”

Lance heard Allura take a small gasp, probably guessing what happened.

“About 45 minutes later I tried to call them, only for the call not to connect. I figured they probably forgot their phones or something. I debated whether or not I should just start walking home and hoping they’d see me on the road. But it was well past sunset now and I don’t have the best sense of direction in the dark. Turns out I wasn’t going to need to walk anywhere.

“Shiro’s parents showed up, told me to get in the car – that we needed to go as soon as possible. My parents had been in a hit and run that had resulted instantly in death; the other… the other driver was never found.”

Lance felt him take another breath as the hand that was still running through his hair started to tremble slightly.

“Shiro’s parents drove us straight to the hospital. To be honest, a lot of what happened between getting there and the funeral is a blur, I don’t have any distinctive memories. It was kind of like I just wasn’t there. I knew my parents were gone and that I was well and truly alone, and you know, as a kid you figure if you put walls up around yourself you won’t get hurt by other people. If I didn’t let people in I wouldn’t get abandoned again.

“It was a few weeks before a funeral was put together and all of my parents affairs were put into place. The next thing I can remember was screaming and throwing things. I was blaming myself for their deaths, like if I hadn’t made the team they would have still be alive. If I hadn’t called them, they never would have been on that road.”

Lance heard Shiro sigh.

“Before he could do too much damage and cause a bigger scene I tackled him to the floor. I had to drag him out of the church while he was screaming and crying that everything was his fault and that it would have been better for everyone if he was the one who had died and not them,” Shiro’s voice interjected, hitching near the end.

Lance’s hands tightened in Keith’s shirt, his knuckles turning white.

“My parents left in their will that Shiro’s family was to take me in if anything had ever happened to them and it wasn’t long after the funeral that I’d start having a lot of visits with a psychologist. I’d have panic attacks where I disassociate and I come back to myself in different places. I got put on a lot of medications for the next two and half years before we found the right coping mechanisms.

“Probably not surprising to either of you, but it was one of my last visits with my psychologist that we figured out that Lance was actually the best thing that could have happened to me. He got somehow through the last of the walls I had up and I finally accepted that I could get close to him and that he wouldn’t just up and leave me.”

Lance pushed himself up from Keith’s chest to look him in the face. He could feel the tightness of his skin from the dried tears and he could feel more welling up in his eyes.

Keith raised his hand and settled it on Lance’s cheek.

“If you hadn’t been so fucking stubborn I wouldn’t have the family I do now,” he said, his eyes locked on Lance’s, “and I’m sure as hell gonna get you through this too.”

Lance scrunched his eyes up, pushing the tears out as he nodded his head, as he pushed himself back into Keith’s chest, failing to hold back another sob.

Keith glanced over at Shiro and Allura, a small sad smile on his face. Allura was wiping her tears away as Shiro pulled her to his chest.

“We’ll let you guys be,” Shiro said, “but if you need anything at all, you let us know, alright?”

“Yeah,” Keith agreed.

Shiro and Allura left the room, shutting the door quietly behind them.

Keith pressed a kiss against the top of Lance’s head before pulling back so he could look at his face.

“Hey, you ready for some food? I think Ana might have left some pizza for us.”

Lance sniffed but nodded as he brought his hands up to wipe his eyes.

Keith slid off the bed and held his hand out for Lance to take before leading him down the stairs to the kitchen.

It would take time, but they’d be alright. They’d get through this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this chapter has taken so long and that it's a bit shorter than normal. Between life getting turned a little upside down and the worst case of writer's block ever, it's been rough trying to get find the time and energy to write this.
> 
> But here it is. I hope you enjoy it.


	10. All I Have

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Less angst? Maybe? Sorta? Idk, but we're moving forward.

Lance watched the morning light drift through his window as the sun rose the next morning. Keith’s arms were still snuggly wrapped around his middle from behind. He had tried to sleep. He had been exhausted enough to sleep. And yet it had eluded him.

His eyes drifted over to the second drawer of his desk where the ring he had picked for Keith sat and he stared until his eyes unfocused. He couldn’t image his life without Keith in it anymore. In fact, he couldn’t imagine his life without Keith since he told his mother he was in love with him.

The love that burned in him was special, he knew that, he’d always been told that. Everything he’d ever been taught about how to love someone had come from watching his parents. Despite the ups and downs their family had experienced, despite the late night petty arguments his parents had over trivial things, there was always a deep love in their relationship.

***

Lance was sitting on the beach as the sun was dropping down the horizon, close enough to the water that the waves lapped at his legs that were stretched out before him.

His friends had been visiting for a few days now and seemed to be settling in pretty well. Hunk was always comfortable and had finally been allowed to help out in the kitchen. 

Pidge had settled in like she belonged the next morning after his mama had made her famous pancakes, of which she ate seven.

Lance tilted his head to the side as he thought about Keith. Despite his initial awkwardness with his boisterous family, Lance couldn’t help but feel like Keith fit like a missing puzzle piece.

He heard the footsteps coming up behind him, but they were so familiar to him that he didn’t need to turn around know who it was before they kneeled down behind him, resting their hands on his shoulders.

“Mijo,” his mother’s sweet voice spoke softly into his ear, “tu amor es especial, que nunca lo olviden. Sin el amor que sentimos en este momento, no hay vida, no hay felicidad. Dígale a él.”

And just as quickly as she had been there, she stood up and left. His eyebrows twitched into a slight frown and he turned around only to see Keith standing there, one hand rubbing up and down his other arm almost nervously.

“Keith?”

“You’ve been out here for a while, I asked your mom if maybe we should check on you…” he began, eyes darting around, catching on Lance’s for only a moment before looking away again.

“I come out here to think some times,” Lance replied, “it’s calming.”

“Your mom said the same thing,” Keith mumbled before finally settling down next to Lance.

“Pretty sure my mamá knows everything about everything,” Lance said with a laugh, shifting to pull his knees up and wrapping his arms around them.

“Everything alright?”

Lance rested his head on his arms, head turned to look at Keith, a smile on his lips. “Yeah, everything’s alright.”

Keith’s shoulders relaxed and he let out a soft sigh. Lance’s heart stuttered at the smile that took the place of Keith’s frown.

“What did your mom say before she left?” Keith asked as his eyes caught Lance’s.

Lance felt his breath hitch and felt the bloom of heat across his face. “She uh…,” he began before clearing his throat, “she just gave me some advice.”

“About what?”

Lance hesitated at first, but her last words replayed in his head. _Tell him._ “Love.”

A pink tinge blossomed on Keith’s cheeks but he didn’t look away, “oh?”

Lance searched his eyes for a moment. Was it possible? Could Keith possibly return his feelings? He sat up, his eyes still locked on Keith’s.

“Keith…”

“Yeah?” he responded, head tilting to the side slightly as he leaned forward.

“I, I need to tell you something,” Lance continued, leaning in as well.

“I need to tell you something too,” Keith whispered back.

Their faces were close, Lance could feel Keith’s breath on his lips and he licked them as they suddenly felt very dry.

“I’m in love with you,” he breathed out.

As soon as he’d said it, Keith pressed their lips together and Lance’s eyes fluttered shut. His heart was pounding, he was sure Keith could probably feel it. 

The sound of sparklers lighting behind caused Lance to let out a laugh as they broke apart, their foreheads resting against each other. The sounds of his family and friends whooping in the background made a large grin spread across his face as Keith looked behind them in horror.

Lance stood up, brushing the sand off his pants before stretching his hand out to help Keith up. Keith took it without reservation despite looking extremely embarrassed.

Lance turned to walk towards his mother as she held out two sparklers to them, but Keith pulled back lightly on his hand. He turned back to see Keith with one of the brightest smiles he’d ever had.

“I love you too, Lance.”

***

The tears slid over the bridge of his nose and down his other cheek, gathering in a damp spot on his pillow. Lance brought his hands up, pressing the heels into his eyes, as he took a shuddering breath.

Keith’s grip tightened around him and he felt a soft kiss press against the back of his neck.

“Did you sleep at all?”

Lance shook his head no before he pushed himself up out of the bed and out of Keith’s arms. He paced back and forth for a few moments before he stopped short, eyes wide with what looked like an epiphany and then walked out the door.

“Lance?” Keith asked as he scrambled to follow him, unsure about what he would do this early in the morning.

In the hallway, Lance was knocking on Isaac’s door, the boy opening it looking as if he’d just woken up.

“Where’s my old guitar?” Lance asked.

Isaac cocked his head. “Wha? Lance it’s like six-thirty in the morning.”

“My old guitar that I left here, where is it?”

Isaac looked at Lance before shifting his questioning gaze to Keith, who could only shrug in response. Isaac turned around and walked back to his room before returning with a worn looking blue acoustic guitar.

“Take a shower, we’ve got work to do,” Lance said before turning around and knocking on Maria’s door.

Isaac looked at Keith again before sighing and walking to the bathroom.

Maria opened her door, her eyes catching on the blue guitar before shifting to Lance’s face. “What are you planning?”

“I know Keith left the music up to you two, but I’ve got a plan. We only need one song. And we’re going to sing it,” Lance replied, determination taking over the broken sadness in his eyes.

Maria’s brows furrowed as she studied Lance for a moment for realization dawned on her face. “No.”

“Maria.”

“No, Lance. I couldn’t even get through that song when we sang it for Lina’s funeral. What makes you think I could sing it for mamá?”

“Because it’s mamá, and it’s what she would have wanted.”

Maria’s face scrunched up as her eyes glossed over with tears.

Keith was staring at both of them in shock. Lina was their cousin that had died a year and a half earlier of acute myelogenous leukemia. Lina and Maria had been inseparable growing up, and the song she had sung for her had been incredibly hard to do. When Maria had broken down into sobs half way through it, Lance had stood up and finished the song for her.

Lance was asking a lot, but he was also right. Natalia would have wanted them to sing it again.

Maria stared at Lance for a while longer, sadness and frustration mixing on her face before it crumbled away and she conceded. “Fine, you’re right. But you have to tell papá.”

Lance’s face paled as he nodded, “yeah… yeah.” He turned his head to look at the door to his parent’s room, taking a deep breath and then releasing it. He turned back to Keith, holding the guitar out to him.

“Would you take this downstairs for me? I’ll be down in a few minutes,” Lance asked.

Keith nodded, carefully taking the guitar from him and heading down the stairs.

Lance took one step towards his father’s door before Maria laid her hand on his arm. “I’ll tell the others though. They might want to sing too.”

Lance pulled her into a tight hug. “Gracias hermanita,” he whispered before pressing a kiss into her hair.

Maria pushed him away with a slight huff and a roll of her eyes, the closed her door softly.

Lance walked to the door at the end of the hallway, his hand resting on the art still there. The decision to sing this particular song was right. He knew it in his heart. He knew it was what they needed to start healing, even if it would be one of the most difficult things they would ever do. Singing it for Lina had been hard enough, but this time is was for their mamá.

Lance knocked twice.

“Come in,” his father’s voice called.

Lance took a deep breath and turned the handle. They’d be alright, they could move forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize if any of the Spanish is incorrect. It's been years since I've taken Spanish, and I am also no where near fluent, so I used a translation website for the Spanish in this chapter.
> 
> More or less the translation:  
>  _Your love is special, never forget that. Without the love you feel right now, there is no life, no happiness. Tell him._
> 
> You'll have to wait until chapter 12 to find out what the song they're talking about is though, so please look forward to that.


	11. I Miss You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conversations, memories, and terrible naming conventions - featuring the longest chapter yet!
> 
> Typos and any grammatical issues will be fixed as I find them.

His father was resting against the headboard of his bed, rubbing his eyes while a book lay open in his lap.

Lance swallowed around the lump that formed in his throat when his father’s eyes flickered up to his face. A small smile spread, his eye crinkling making the wrinkles that were already there more prominent. This was the first time Lance could say that his father looked his age.

“Morning,” his father said softly, patting the bed next to him, an invitation for Lance to come away from the door.

Lance took a deep, shuddering breath and crawled into the bed next to him; his father’s arm wrapped around him in a tight hug.

“Did you sleep at all?” Lance murmured from where his face was pressed into his father’s shoulder.

There was a long pause before his father spoke. “No, but I have a feeling you didn’t either.” 

Lance took another shuddering breath, before squeezing his arms tighter.

“So, what has you up so early in the morning?”

Lance opened and closed his mouth many times in attempt to talk to his father, but here, held in his tight embrace, he didn’t want to disturb the atmosphere. His brow furrowed against his father’s shoulder and he squeezed his eyes closed.

“You don’t have to talk, Lance,” his father said softly into the top of his hair, “but I would really like to know what’s on your mind.”

“A lot of things are on my mind,” Lance muttered into his father’s shoulder, “but so much of it just doesn’t matter.”

“It all matters, whether you see that right now or not.”

“I’m pretty sure thinking about the weather outside doesn’t matter right now,” Lance responded.

His father let out a little chuckle, “no, I suppose not.”

Lance let out a sigh and pulled away from his father’s embrace.

“I did want to talk about a few things though,” he said, clearing his throat and scratching at the stubble growing on his chin.

His father closed the book on his lap and set it on the nightstand next to him before turning his gaze back to Lance.

“First, uh, we picked the music for the funeral,” Lance started.

“Good, what did you pick?”

“Well, you remember that song Maria sang for Lina’s funeral?”

His father nodded, understanding shining in his dark blue eyes, “she would have loved that choice.”

Lance’s eyes welled up with tears again as he let out a soft, slightly strangled sounding “yeah.”

Tomas pulled him back into a tight hug, letting his son’s tears soak through the shirt he was wearing. They sat there like that for a while, in each other’s embrace. Both taking solace in each other’s grieving.

And Lance felt he finally understood. He understood that, while she was no longer with them, she would never truly be gone. They each held a piece of her in their hearts and would never be forgotten. She would be there for every birthday, every holiday, every family tradition. She would be there when he finally proposed to Keith.

Lance pulled back from his father again.

“The other thing I wanted to talk about was the plans we had for next week,” he said softly.

His father’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. “Do you want to put them off a little longer? I know your mama was a big part of the planning, but I don’t think she’d want you to postpone your life just because hers has ended.”

“That’s just it, papa. At first I did want to wait as it didn’t feel right to have a big party that was supposed to be happy after we lost mama, but now, I feel like if we don’t go through with it, she’d be mad,” Lance said with a soft, wet laugh.

His father chuckled at that. “I can see her looking down on you, shaking that wooden spoon at you saying ‘Mijo! Just because I’m not there doesn’t mean you can back out of this now. You propose to that boy and get on with it!’”

“Yeah,” Lance replied, laughing a little harder.

It felt good, being able to laugh through the sadness. It felt right, like that’s what she would have done.

Sadness didn’t belong in the McClain house.

“Well,” Lance began with the release of a deep breath, “Maria, Isaac, and I should get practicing since it’s been a while since any of us have played it.”

“I’m sure it will be wonderful. Tell your brother and sister I’ll be down in a few minutes to start breakfast.”

His father pulled him into another hug, pressing a kiss to his forehead before they both climbed off the bed, Lance leaving the room, and his father headed towards the master bathroom.

Shutting the door softly behind him, Lance took a deep breath, his eyes focused on the carpeting beneath his feet. He could hear his brother and sister making noise downstairs, the occasional twang of a guitar string and the thump of the cajon his brother favored for smaller performances.

“Everything good?”

Lance looked up at his boyfriend, who was standing on the landing of the stairs.

God he loved Keith so much.

He stepped away from his father’s door, taking quick steps to cross the distance between the two. His hands gripped the sides of Keith’s face and kissed him deeply. Morning breath be damned. He’d kiss Keith any time, any where.

Keith’s hands came to rest on Lance’s hips, his thumbs rubbing soft circles through his sleep shirt

“I love you,” Lance whispered against Keith’s lips before giving him another peck.

Keith laughed lightly, “I love you too.”

Lance pulled back, a small smile on his face and he looked over Keith’s face; memorizing the way it looked in this moment. And yeah, by this time next week he wouldn’t be his boyfriend anymore, he’d be his fiancé. At least he hoped.

A sudden off-key twang rang out from downstairs and then the sharp sound of a guitar string breaking. Keith and Lance both looked towards the stairs.

“Shit…” came Isaac’s voice.

“I suppose practice might need to be delayed a bit,” Tomas’ voice called out behind them.

Lance turned to face his father that had just come out of his room.

“Yeah, which means we can make breakfast while you take a break,” he said.

Keith watched as a small smile spread across Lance’s face. It may not have been the smile that made Keith weak at the knees and his eyes may have still been a little watery, but it was genuine. Behind the tears there was a sparkle that Keith knew and loved.

Tomas walked over and clapped both boys on their shoulders, a soft smile on his own face.

“Then let’s get to it,” he said and stepped around them.

***

They were outside the airport, Hunk and Pidge had just finished unloading their bags from the back of Lance’s car, gently closing the trunk lid.

“I don’t want to you go,” Lance whispered, his forehead resting against Keith’s, their hands intertwined at their hips.

“Neither do I,” Keith responded, squeezing Lance’s hands gently.

“Then stay, three days with my boyfriend isn’t long enough, especially when you’re going back to California,” Lance said, whining a bit at the end. “That’s so far.”

Keith let out a small snort of laughter. “You’ll be back soon enough though; it’s what, four weeks until school starts again?”

“That’s a whole month away,” Lance pouted.

“So dramatic,” Keith laughed, head bumping him softly.

“Can’t you stay? It doesn’t have to be the whole month, not that I’d say no to staying for that long, but like, just a few days? The rest of the week?” Lance bargained.

“I wish I could, but I used up all my time off from work. I have to go back,” Keith sighed, letting go Lance’s hands to wrap his arms around his waist.

Lance’s arms moved up around his neck, his hands playing with the long strands of Keith’s hair.

“Fine,” Lance conceded with a huff. “I’ll let you go, but I won’t be happy about it.”

Keith responded by tilting his head and pressing a hard kiss to his lips, his finger pressing harder into Lance’s lower back. Lance hummed into the kiss, his hand gripping Keith’s hair tighter.

Pidge made an exaggerated gagging sound behind them and Hunk tried to hide his laugh behind his hand.

Lance broke the kiss and glared at both of them over Keith’s shoulder for a brief moment before looking back at Keith.

“Maybe I’ll come back early? Hunk said the lease on the apartment actually starts at the beginning of the month, we could have two weeks together before classes start again,” Lance said.

“Yeah, yeah do that,” Keith replied with a goofy grin on his face.

“Not to break up the love fest going on between you two but Hunk and I would like to say goodbye too before we have to go through security,” Pidge called over.

Lance pressed another kiss to Keith’s lips before reluctantly pulling away from his embrace.

Keith stooped down to grab his duffle bag and swung it over his shoulder.

“See you in a few weeks,” he said 

Lance walked over to Pidge and pulled her into a tight hug.

“Thanks for coming to visit,” his said into her hair.

Pidge gave him a toothy grin as she hugged back, “I’m glad I got to taste your mom’s pancakes, they were the best.”

Lance laughed before letting her go and pulling Hunk into a hug as well.

“You too man,” he said.

Hunk lifted him a few inches into the air as he hugged back.

“I’m happy this worked out for you,” Hunk whispered into his ear.

Lance laughed as he was placed back on the ground. “Me too. Well, you guys should get going. Make sure you let me know when you guys get home, yeah?”

His friends nodded before turning and walking through the airport doors and disappearing into the crowd.  
Lance sighed, getting back into car. “Two weeks McClain, you can make it two weeks.”

***

Lance found himself sitting on the kitchen counter, looking out the glass doors to the backyard, following Keith’s movements as he paced back and forth. He was on the phone, though Lance didn’t know who with; however it didn’t look like a fun conversation judging by facial expressions he caught. Breakfast had finished up quite a while ago; the dished cleaned up and put away, his father in the other room with his brother and sister, chatting softly.

Lance’s thoughts drifted to the song they were going to sing, his older siblings had all declined on performing with them. Isaac seems incredibly hesitant as he’d stared at his cajon the whole time they had sat in the living room eating. Isaac hadn’t sung with them at Lina’s funeral and it seemed to Lance that’d he probably back out any moment, leaving Maria and himself to sing it. Which honestly was fine, Lance didn’t want to push his brother to do anything.

With a sigh he hopped off the counter and stepped outside to tell Keith that he was going to run to the music store to pick up the spare guitar strings.

“-back in a week and a half,” he caught Keith saying into his phone. “No, I can’t come back early, this vacation was put into the schedule two months ago, Regris.”

Keith glanced up at the sound of the door shutting, his furrowed brow relaxing from his frown at the sight of Lance’s small, apologetic smile for interrupting.

“Call Kolivan in to cover what you need, I will not be in until the end of the month,” Keith grumpily said into his phone before hanging up and shoving the phone into his pocket.

Lance opened his arm and Keith stepped into them, resting his head on Lance’s shoulders, his arm wrapping around his waist.

“Being the boss really sucks sometimes,” he mumbled into the fabric of Lance’s shirt.

Lance laughed softly, his arms wrapping around Keith’s shoulders. “What’s up at work?’

“Regris said some client came in with a big job that needed to be done in the next week and I guess they requested that I have a hand on it personally, but no, I’m not leaving until my vacation is completely over.”

Lance hummed in response.

“You looked like you wanted to talk about something,” Keith said after a few minutes of enjoying holding his boyfriend.

“I was going to run to the music store, just wanted to let you know,” Lance replied.

Keith nodded before pulling back.

“I’ll be back in a little bit, don’t miss me too much,” Lance said, placing a kiss on Keith’s lips before turning back to the door and leaving.

\---

Lance and Maria sat in his room, his door closed while they practiced. Isaac had indeed decided that he didn’t want to sing with them. He had told them just a few minutes into their first run through of the song with tears welling up in his eyes.

Lance’s fingers fumbled a bit on the cord progression and came to a stop as his mind wandered.

“Lance?” Maria’s voice brought him back.

“Sorry, let my mind drift,” Lance mumbled, his left hand dropping away from the frets.

“We should take a break, we’ve been at this for a few hours now and I could use a break,” she replied.

Lance nodded, setting his guitar down on his bed and stretching.

“You’re still going to ask Keith to marry you right?” Maria asked with a soft voice.

Lance’s face flushed red as his eyes snapped to Maria’s, “Who told you?”

She laughed, “Mama let it slip to me a few weeks ago.”

“Does Isaac know because he can’t keep a secret and he’s downstairs with Keith right now,” Lance asked, fiddling nervously with the hem of his shirt.

“No, god no,” Maria snorted, “after mama let it slip she swore me to secrecy, she told me if I told Isaac she would never make me pancakes again.”

Lance smiled at her, “yeah, I’m still going to ask him. Nyma and Rolo have the party all set to g—shit!”

He leapt off his bed to grab his phone from his desk, quickly finding his contacts and calling Nyma.

She picked up on the third ring, “Lance? We’re just finalized out tickets for tomorrow morning, Keith told you we were coming, right?”

“Nyma, yes, hi, Keith told me. Operation Engagement is a go,” Lance said all in one breath.

There was silence on the other end of the line. Lance’s eyes caught his sister’s incredulous look.

“Operation Engagement, really? That’s the best you could come up with?” she asked.

Lance rolled his eyes at her, “Nyma?”

Still silence.

“Hello, Nyma?”

There was a sudden screech and a loud crash in the background.

“Gotta go Lance, preparations have to be made now to get all this across the country tomorrow, bye!”

The call ended and Lance stared down at his phone.

“Should we get back to practicing now?” Maria asked as she took a drink from her cup that was sitting on the desk.

Lance set his phone down and sat back on his bed, grabbing his guitar again.

\---

Bye the time Maria was too tired to keep singing they pretty much had the song down pat. A few final tweaks tomorrow after they were rested would be all they needed for Saturday.

Lance felt Keith roll into his side, pressing kisses along his bare shoulder and towards his chest. He closed his eyes, enjoying the attention from his boyfriend when he felt a nip against his collarbone.

Keith shifted again and Lance felt his breath hot against his ear.

“I miss being inside you,” Keith whispered into his ear, his voice dropped low.

Lance felt his heart rate speed up as a shiver ran down his spine. 

“Babe,” he whined, “the walls are so thin here.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to keep quiet, won’t you?” Keith replied, shifting himself so he hovered above Lance, a dirty smirk on his lips and his eyes lidded.

“Yeah, yeah ok,” Lance agreed before they met in a hard, open-mouthed kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that this took 6 months to update. I never wanted to leave this story to sit that long. Work is over for the summer now, so hopefully I can crank out the last two chapters in a more reasonable time frame. Fingers crossed.
> 
> Rating is probably going to go up next chapter, we'll see.
> 
> Sorry not sorry.
> 
> Please, please leave comments, I read all of them! Or come yell at me on tumblr (aurarre).

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first fan fic in like 12 years, so I'm sorry if this reads stuffy or anything. Gotta ease myself back into this whole thing. I apologize for any errors, this is not beta read. Thanks for reading!


End file.
